Gone for the summer

MAD is away from DC for the summer. No District, no MAD.

But take heart - you can follow the pastoral adventures of MAD in remote, lovely Rushford, New York by clicking here and entering the World of Bs.

MAD will resume at summer's end. WOBs will let you know.

See ya!

MAD about the summer

MAD is spending the summer away from DC and that means that means no MAD until I return.
The past few months of writing have been very enjoyable, full of discovery of places, process and software. I've spent a lot of time trying to put my experiences and my response to them into words; the focus and self-discipline have been beneficial to my adjustment to the time I spend in DC.


For the summer I'll be living in a cabin in a rural county in the Southern Tier of NYS, continuing to commute to work in Buffalo. But certainly not able to find a museum close by every single day.

So what's a blogger to do?

Must be time to begin The World of Bs.


Seems to me that most of my many favorites begin with the letter B: books, baking, baseball, basketball, babies, and balls of yarn. And my guess is that for purposes of that blog -oh and blogging- most anything can be creatively transformed into a B word. So for the summer I will be taking it easy, removing myself from the pressures of daily museum-going, and exploring all of the above items and activities and reporting on them. A request: if you have any B suggestions please pass them on!









MAD will pick up at this location in mid-august. Enjoy your summer.

Azaleas!

Last week I was told that the azaleas would be peaking this weekend. So MAD waited until now and got stuck with a rainy day.

Big deal.

MAD, MR. MAD and MADYS (MAD's younger son) took an excursion today to the National Arboretum to see the azaleas. Hillsides of azaleas - lavender, red, white fuchsia and pink. One of such a soft pink that it looked like growing cotton candy. I was overwhelmed by the color and variety. Despite the dark day, the colors were intensified by the rain.

We didn't get to see azaleas like this in Buffalo. Maybe it has something to do with the difference in growing zones. I remember them in the DC area from when I lived in Arlington in the spring of 1973.

And I believe that I remember them with my heart from the magic placed that was my grandparents' house in Mount Vernon, NY. Their azaleas were clipped, formal foundation plants. I seem to remember that a few of them were transplanted to my parents' house when we moved there. The exposure must have not been as good and they didn't seem to bloom as well. Maybe I am imagining the whole thing , but I have always loved azaleas and this very early childhood recollection seems as good a reason as any.

As if MAD needed a reason to enjoy azaleas in bloom.

Sheepish

Does the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival count as a museum? MAD makes the rules and MAD says yes.

Howard County Fairgrounds is the home of the country's largest sheep and wool festivals which makes for lots of sheep, lots of wool and lot and lots of people.

The barns are filled with artisan yarns - hand spun and hand-dyed, rovings and batts of wool in natural and rainbow of colors that make you reach out to touch the fibers. Many of the vendors sell breed-specific yarns and you are able feel the differences between Corriedale, Border Leicester, Romney, cashmere to mention only a few.

The you can see the differences - one of the barns has an example of all of the many breeds in the show. MAD's favorite is Jacob's Sheep, an ancient breed with two rows of horns that was dwindling until a program was initiated to stabilize and re-invigorate the breed.

An odd juxtaposition - to MAD, maybe you don't think so - is the exhbition of lambs and sheep, fleece and yarn next to the food boths which are selling (mostly) lamb items. No charge for the smell.

There was a lake of restrooms and a lack of places to sit. So to eat we sat down on bleachers in the barn where the animals were being displayed in the ring, vocally baa-ing and maa-ing sounding exactly like people pretending to be animals.

MAD was accompanied by MADOD (pregnant-with-twins Older Daughter) who gave her an excuse to buy yarn to make baby items as well as the joint purchase of Vintage Baby Knits, inscribed by author Kristen Rendgren to Baby A and Baby B. And we purchased yarn for each other for what has become our annual birthday gift exchange. Thank you , MADOD, for the excuse, for the birthday gift and for the day spent together.

Under the Dome

It wasn't easy but MAD did get there.

Helen Suzman: Fighter for Human Rights had been on display at the Georgetown University Inter-Cultural Center until April 20 and MAD was disappointed to not get there in time to see it. Turns out I was very lucky.

The exhibit, developed by the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research at the University of Cape Town, is touring the US and for this week only had been moved to the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda - on its own an impressive sight. To get there from the Capitol South Metro Station you pass the Capitol, the Library of Congress and then the Supreme Court with Equal Justice Under Law carved on its pediment. You enter the Russell Building in the correct mood to learn about the life of Helen Suzman.

Beneath a dome three stories high, display panels tell in words and show in pictures, letters and documents the story of her life and work


Her parents, Jewish immigrants to South Africa from Eastern Europe, lived comfortably by the time Helen was born in 1917. We see pictures of her as a child and a young woman and mother and then we are amazed to see her as she magically (it seems) turns into a committed fighter for the freedom of all.

Originally sent to Parliament for the United Party, she was a founder of the Progressive Party and its only elected member as well as the only voice in opposition to apartheid for 13 of her 36 years in office. She visited Nelson Mandela on Robben Island and visited lesser and unknown people and places where injustices were being committed in the name of the government. She never gave up and was instrumental in the establishment of a unity government only retiring from elected office in 1989 .

During her entire career as a public servant she stood for the rule of law, even when the law was directly opposed to her own beliefs, believing that the law needed to be changed rather than disregarded.

MAD wonders what the forces were that set her on the course of her remarkable life -How amazing to learn of what one person can do, when most people don't.

How fitting to learn about her in this particular setting.

Chinese Art, Day Two

What MAD doesn't do for you! Hot hot day -in case you didn't figure it out yesterday, MAD hates heat. I walked up 16th Street across from the lovely descending terraces of Meridian Hill a/k/a Malcolm X Park trying to stay in the shade. Followed the sign directing me left onto Belmont for the Meridian International Center, looking down at purple "snow" and sniffing up at what turned out to be the fragrance of wisteria hanging over a brick wall, only to find out (1) the turn onto Belmont (an uphill walk) only was necessary for drivers and (2) I was too early for Metropolis Now (shoulda paid attention to real, as opposed to perceived, time). Only thing to do was go away and come back later.

And am I glad I did - Metropolis Now is sort of the opposite of the calligraphy exhibit yesterday. That was as old as it gets in China and you can't get much newer than this stuff. That was one overlay for MAD. Add on MAD's trip to China in November 2008, the venue of the almost private White-Meyer House and the formality and thoughtfulness with which this show was hung and I had an extraordinary unexpected experience. Since I am not particularly interested in contemporary Chinese art.

At least I didn't used to be.


Across from the portico of the renovated house you are greeted by Chen Zhiguang's three gigantic stainless steel Ants - whose picture is the exhibit's logo. - so magical, even playful, in person with their size and many colors. Volunteer Amy Tomlinson told me that she thinks of them as a reminder of the contrast between the traditionally collective nature of Chinese society and a new emphasis on the individual. Wei Qingji's Spiderman 2 evoked the same connection to me.

Did what I saw yesterday heighten my response today? Over and over I was struck by the juxtaposition and connection between traditional Chinese art and the new in subject matter, materials and energy. Once inside your eyes are filled with a wall covered by Cao Jingping's enormous multi-panelled acrylic Summer, reminiscent of several of the spots MAD saw in China as well as of traditional paintings but wow! the scale and intensity of colors were brand new.


MAD also visited the Temple of Heaven -Liu Ren's Sleepwalker looked like the Temple inside a dream. Visits to both an embroidery and a silk factory were evoked by Liu Liyun's silk and cotton composition A Volume of Landscape depicting ordinary household objects in embroidery and silk sculpture. New Pictures, old materials and techniques.

Wang Xiaohui's self-portrait photos in a succession of clothes from the beginning of the 20th century through now - printed on rice paper .




Tu Shaohui's quiet ink wash on silk Red Wall Numbers 1,2 and 3 using traditional elements of landscape, birds and a person in new styles and configurations to show the current uncertainties of the young in today's China.

Liu Qinghe's Untitled scroll showing a diversity of faces in ink using a material as spiritual tool that both adheres to tradition and fosters innovation.

I better shut up - but I was so astonished by the many elements I encountered and the setting in which they were presented.

Just one more, OK?

Lv Shanchuan uses newstories to create scenes not only for their content but also for their location's power to move and inspire. With Chinese writing on the left hand side, focused on the U.S Capitol and the Mall, January 21, 2009 (wouldn't it have been the next day in China?) does just that.

On display right now in the metropolis of the District of Columbia.

In Other Words

Hot day in the district. Escalators and elevator outage at the U Street Metro Station . At the bottom of that inactive escalator, spotting a hugely pregnant woman walking up, MAD offered to carry up her two hugely heavy bags of groceries. She didn't speak English and MAD doesn't speak whatever she speaks, but somehow the offer was communicated and accepted. At the top, she offered her thanks with a bottle of iced tea and her hand. Sometimes worlds can be communicated without words.

I was on my way to the Freer Gallery's Writing, Carving and Rubbing: China's Calligraphic Arts. A peaceful quiet gallery providing a cool refuge from the heat and crowds outdoors contained examples of Chinese calligraphy. Inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells made for purposes of divination morphed into lines of communication and became one of the four arts .

The exhibit traces the development of the six major types of script which began with oracle-bones between the 14th and 11th centuries B.C.E. Having read Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones I was delighted to be able to see an example of a turtle shell with the carvings - only to read the description which identified the carvings as a good fake. At least I got to see what it was supposed to look like!

The scripts - which continued sequentially with Seal, Clerical, Cursive, Running and Standard are presented in the form of rubbings, scrolls and carvings. Even though I may have seen them all before separately, seeing them together made me aware of the lovely differences between these types. I learned about the eight different brush-strokes called radicals that make up standard calligraphy, the version that every child learns in school and saw the Four Treasures of the Scholar's Studio.


But get this: because none of the rubbings, paintings or carvings are translated as part of the exhibit, I was forced to look at them purely as visual art and ignore their original content. The lines on the paper took on meanings to me through the feelings I experienced while looking. No words or thoughts got in the way.

Twice in one day.