sew much fabric

Sewing lessons with a.scho + finding vintage fabric forgotten on a shelf = so much fun, and so many skirts. If you're interested in making one of these lovelies, let me know. Directions are a cinch.

cute

Babies are living, and this was inspired by Chagall's La promenade. Justified. This woman is a clever ad lady, and for the record this one is my favorite.

the bubble

Maybe you've heard of this ambitious proposed-project at the hmsg? It involves the installation of an enormous structure that will rest in the center of the donut-shaped Bundshaft building, bulging out at the top and bottom. The bubble is soft and presents a unique challenge to the project as both designers and curators look for an adequate material in which to execute a stable, tension-based structure for two months out of the year.

In May and October the large structure would be inflated in order to play host to community events, meetings, art installations, debates, films, and anything else that you can think of. Some critics are weary of 'another dome on the mall,' but the balloon shape at the top of the building is executed to mirror Brancusi's Sleeping Muse - one of the collection highlights at the hmsg.

The project is still very much in the planning stage, yet the Director of the hmsg is pretty determined to make this a reality and he seems to get things done. I can say that I hear about it in the office quite a bit - they have people working on raising the funds, marketing, research. Personally, I think that this would be an excellent opportunity for the hmsg to assert its presence on the Mall and that its sheer physical presence would attract some much-deserved attention to the museum.

The structure is designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro from New York.

read my pins

Smithsonian Castle | June 18 to October 17, 2010
Exhibition of pins owned by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and worn during her tenure, sometimes to convey political messages. Although the castle is stuffy, I enjoyed seeing all of the pins and then reading about the circumstances that make each one significant. Bottom right corner, above, was worn as retaliation for being called a 'serpent.'

This one represents the shattered glass ceiling as a result of her appointment.

rediscovered

Alma Thomas 1973 Red Rose Cantata

Thomas  was little-known until her work was suggested (by my boss!) to decorate the interior of the Obamas' living quarters in the White House. Now she's all the rage. This painting hangs in the NGA and another is situated prominently in the Philips. Oh, art market, how fickle you are.

Her work reminds me of Yayoi Kusama, of repetition, of a scarf that K owns... Her rectangles look like torn, delicate fragments, and I love how things begin to come apart when they are repeated over and over.

digesting the art

Tony Cragg 1991 Subcommittee

Subcommittee is a large outdoor sculpture in the area immediately surrounding the HMSG. When I first approached it I was reminded of wooden doll heads, but actually it is an enlarged rubber stamp set. The title conjures ideas of bureaucracy, hierarchy, and slow moving mechanisms: appropriate for the National Mall? It also reminds me of gossiping heads, huddled in a mass. I feel like the stamps have been forgotten in the bustle, as if to comment on the irrelevance of old systems, or the inevitability of younger generations replacing older ones.

Also, I eat my lunch here. 

I like to watch people interact with the sculpture, especially because this one in particular is not so abstract and people generally relate to it or at least finding it aesthetically pleasing. Today a precocious preteen approached me in the middle of my potato salad and asked me to take a picture of her and her friends as they 'like, just did some crazy pose or something.'

I am for an art...

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.

Claes Oldenburg, 1961