National Shrine and National Cathedral

I'm continuing to knock things off my list of places I want to go before leaving DC. Last week I headed to Catholic University to see the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and though there were high school students milling about, waiting to graduate inside, I was able to still walk around the grounds and inside the shrine. Though I've been to lots of churches in Europe (including Westminster Abbey in London and St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican) I'm not sure I've ever been so blown away by the art and architecture — especially since the Shrine has been just three Metro stops from my house for the last three years. The photos I took inside didn't come out especially well, but nearly every inch is covered with shiny mosaics, stained glass, and gold, gold, gold.

After that I took the train to Tenleytown, and walked down Wisconsin Avenue to the National Cathedral, which for some reason I thought you couldn't just visit. You can —the Cathedral is absolutely enormous, and is really new. The foundation stone wasn't laid until 1907, and construction was interrupted during the wars. But while the Shrine is stunningly beautiful, the Cathedral comes off as more imposing. There's some beautiful design to be sure, but the hand-stitched seat cushions are more kitschy Americana than anything else. That said, the outside is impressive, the view from the top lovely (click to enlarge the photo and you'll see the Washington Monument and Capitol Building, and the little Bishop's Garden in back (designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.) was pretty.

Meet Phoebe Greenberg at the Hirshhorn Thursday

Christenberry Show at Hemphill

Hemphill Fine Arts opens three new shows this Saturday with a reception from 6:30-8:30 p.m. One of the artists is my pal William Christenberry, who is showing works taken with a Kodak Brownie Holiday camera. The first exhibition of vintage work by Christenberry, the tiny photos were originally taken as inspiration for paintings.

Also on display are Robin Rose: Distortion, Delay & Sustain and Donald Baechler: Flower Studies.

Corn Sign with Storm Cloud, Near Greensboro, Alabama

Happy Birthday, Elvis!

Today is Elvis Presley's 75th birthday, and to celebrate, the National Portrait Gallery opens One Life: Echoes of Elvis today in the One Life gallery. Look for paintings, photographs and sculptures that illustrate the span of Elvis' life. It's the first of two Elvis shows on display at the gallery this year. In October, Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer, opens.

Phillips After 5 on Thursday

The next Phillips After 5 at the Phillips Collection is this Thursday, and this month there's a special holiday theme. The event runs from 5-8:30. The line-up:

• this is not that Café: Art is _________
The Pink Line Project brings in DJs to remix the definition of art, using Duncan Phillips’ writings as source material. Visitors can text message their own definitions to the DJs, who project them onto the café’s walls from 5–8 p.m.

• Janelle Gill, a jazz pianist, performs from 5–8 p.m.

• Best Cellars offers a Winter Whites Wine Tasting from 5–8 p.m.

• Czech Avant-Garde Photography in the International Context
A lecture by Dr. Vladimir Birgus, Czech photographer, scholar and curator, discusses Czech still-life photography of the 1920s and '30s in relation to contemporary trends in other countries at 6:30 p.m.

Gallery Talks: Très Chic: Man Ray and Fashion
Talks at 6 and 7 p.m. are included in admission to special exhibition and free for members. Special exhibition admission: $12, $10 for seniors/18 and under.

Throughout the evening:

From Sufganiyah to Bûche de Noël: Around the World with Holiday Treats
Buffet of holiday treats.

Museum Shop Discount
20% discount in the shop, except for sale items.

Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection

Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection opens today at the Hirshhorn. The show, which I saw yesterday, is excellent. It's a retrospective of her works from the 1960s up until shortly before she died in 2004. Truitt, who was born in Baltimore, lived in D.C. for much of her life and was friends with artists like Martin Puryear and Kenneth Noland. She studied psychology at Bryn Mawr and worked at Massachusetts General Hospital during World War II. And she lived in Japan for a spell when her husband, a writer for the Washington Post, was based there.

But interesting biography aside, Truitt's works are fascinating. There are several dozen works on paper, but the sculptures - tall, painted columns - provide a big bang. I'm often drawn to artists who explore color, and Truitt, who was friends with many of the Color Field painters, does. Her sculptures, which are often studies of single colors, appear in deep pinks, light greens, reds, black and yellow. They're almost all taller than I am, and while they're meant to be right on the floor, the Hirshhorn has them on risers of about four inches to protect from. Curator Kristen Hileman recommends walking around each sculpture to see how it changes from each angle.

"The work unfolds as you circulate around them," she said.

To kick off the Truitt show, there's a free panel discussion tonight with Hileman, artist Martin Puryear, former Truitt student Tim Gunn of Project Runway fame, and others. The talk is at 7 p.m. and tickets are available first come first served at 5:45.

Anne Truitt, A Wall for Apricots, 1968. Acrylic on wood, 72 5/8 x 14 x 14 in. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Helen B. Stern, Washington, DC. Artwork © Estate of Anne Truitt/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Edward Burtynsky: Oil at the Corcoran

Highway #1, Intersection 105 & 110, Los Angeles, California

Tomorrow the Corcoran opens Edward Burtynsky: Oil, which I think is the most exciting show I've seen there in the three years I've been covering the museum. I wrote a piece for Express on the show, which has comments from curator Paul Roth. An excerpt:

Burtynsky, a Canadian photographer, documents the production, distribution and use of oil and the role it plays in the modern world. The 56 photographs on display depict the effect of oil on our lives, its rising cost and growing unavailability. Over the course of 10 years of work, Burtynsky traveled around the globe to highlight the astounding effects oil has on the planet.

Burtynsky's photographs are printed at large scale, and he looks at everything from aerial views of oil fields and highways that cut through the landscape to the consequences of using oil — look for photographs of abandoned oil derricks, recycling yards and oil tankers.

"Burtynsky does mostly photographs of industrial landscapes," Roth said. "He shoots places that have been changed because of the sheer scale of industry or mechanization or manufacturing, places where there are enormous factories, places where there are enormous holes in the ground, like mines, and places that are changed by our need for things."

The works on display are at once beautiful and terrifying. The extent to which our daily activities have necessitated the destruction of the earth's landscape is astounding. Many of the photographs set these scenes of destruction against rugged mountains or lush greens - the mix of nature and the unnatural is profound. Beautiful shots of a tangle of highways and an artfully arranged lot of cars are deceiving, but where the destruction isn't immediately apparent, it's all right there below the surface. This intersection of art and politics and environmentalism is exceptional - go see it.

Sargent and the Sea

John Singer Sargent's En Route pour la pêche (Setting Out to Fish) is on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art this fall as part of 'Sargent and the Sea.' (Image courtesy the Gallery)

The Corcoran Gallery of Art recently opened Sargent and the Sea. The 80 works include drawings, water colors and oil paintings that John Singer Sargent made while on the French coast. The pieces are from the early part of Sargent's career, and they show a side of him that isn't as well known as his portraits. Look for seascapes, beach scenes and sketches of boats, along with a room that lets you explore your own artistic side.

Phillips After 5 in August

Of all the after hours museum parties in D.C., Phillips After 5 at the Phillips Collection is my favorite. It's laid back, there are very cool lectures, tastings, etc. and it's never as crowded with people trying to be seen as Hirshhorn After Hours. While I'm going to be out of town for a nice chunk of August, I'm glad to see that Phillips After 5 will be happening weekly in August from 5-8:30 p.m.

A number of activities occur at each event, and below are some highlights from the lineup:

August 6
6:30 p.m.
Mortified: Adolescent Angst on Stage
Equal parts comedy, theater, and therapy, Mortified performances star adults who share their real childhood letters, journals, home movies, artwork, and more. Featured on The Today Show and This American Life, Mortified showcases participants who seek personal redemption through public humiliation, exposing themselves at their most vulnerable time: adolescence.

August 13
5–8:30 p.m.
Fresh Farms Markets presents a tasting of summer food from local sources. Fresh Farms creates urban-rural partnerships to strengthen the local-food movement in the Chesapeake Bay region.

Aug. 20
5–8:30 p.m.
Sensory Remix: A Video-Art Collage
Washington video artists John Bowen of Videokiller, Robin Bell and Dissident Display collaborate to create live projections, mixing and distorting original and found video with music. In collaboration with Dissident Display.

Aug. 27
6 & 7 p.m.
Disembodied: Fragmented Figures in Painting
Cecily Brown, Philip Guston, and Susan Rothenberg dismember the human body in their paintings, using body parts to express emotion.

From Bugs to Beasts: Storytelling through Collage by Eric Carle

Last week while I was up in Woodley Park, I happened to see a small gallery with Eric Carle artwork in the window. I love Eric Carle, so I went in to discover that it was the Stanford in Washington Art Gallery, and the show was From Bugs to Beasts: Storytelling through Collage by Eric Carle.

The gallery is tiny, but it's packed with collages and sculptures. There's duck and whale, fireflies, Noah's Ark, and so many other pretty works. The show runs through September 1, and hours are 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 12-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Going to the Eric Carle Museum is on my to-do list for my August vacation, as I've just learned that Tomie DePaola is going to be coming for a talk in conjunction with Drawings from the Heart: Tomie dePaola Turns 75.

Creating Characters: An Illustrative Evening, A Discussion with Mary GrandPre

The new Harry Potter movie comes out next week, but before you go see it, revisit the books with a talk by illustrator Mary GrandPre. She’ll be at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Monday night to talk about her career (she’s done more than just Harry). We chatted earlier this week about how she got into illustration, her favorite character to draw, and why she never met J.K. Rowling until after the third book was completed.

How did you get into illustration?

About 25 years ago I was trying to figure out how to make a living and make art at the same time. I went to school at Minneapolis College of Art and Design where I really learned about illustration. I started freelancing while waiting tables after college and little by little I started building up a portfolio of editorial work and ad work and books, and then I got into children’s books. I had been doing illustrations for about 15 years before Harry came along and so I had a few children’s books out there by the time that David Saylor called me about doing the first book.

Describe your process for illustrating a book.

For a picture book, I get the manuscript then just start breaking it down into 32 pages or 48 pages, whatever the count is that the publisher wants to work with. I start doing character development and think about the style and color palate and all that stuff that makes a book have its own personality. Then I start sketching it out and go through an approval process with the art directors and work on characters more and make changes here and there.

How about for the Harry Potter books?

I get the manuscript delivered to me by hand and I need to put it in a safe. I can’t talk to anyone about what I’m doing or what I’m reading. I take a couple weeks to read it and highlight descriptions. The books are so packed full of visual descriptions that I need to mark different things with different color highlighters. I have my own system down when searching for what a character or a cover idea might be. Then I call David Saylor at Scholastic and talk about concepts, cover ideas and chapter spots. After that I go to the drawing board and do some sketches and send those to David and Arthur Levine and those are also passed to J.K Rowling at that point.

The Potter books are quite rushed and the whole process takes two to two and a half months. Everything is put on the backburner — holidays, personal life, everything — when Harry comes to town.


Your illustrations seem to glow, and you use color so wonderfully. What materials do you work with?

Oh, thank you! I work with pastels and sometimes I combine them with acrylic paint underneath. And I work on paper.

What's your favorite character that you've drawn?

In Potter, I’d say Sirius or Hagrid. They’re opposite in who they are and their demeanor, but they have so much personality. Harry’s also a fun one. For other books, I like doing animals and folk tale things.

How closely do you work with the author?

There’s always a disconnect, and the publisher is the bridge between us. I think they like to keep us separate as the author has her own vision and the illustrator has her own vision, and I think its just easier for everyone to have the publisher or art director or editor be the contact person.

I did meet J.K. Rowling after the third book had come out and she was touring the U.S. I met her in Chicago and we had dinner with a big group of people. She was really nice about the work that I was doing and she said that the way I drew Harry was much like the way she saw him.

Is there a dream book that you would want to illustrate?

I would like to do a book that’s more adult or for all ages, maybe not so much a story but more a collection of paintings and images. Right now I’m doing some personal work, and a series of angels.

What are you working on next?

I’m working on three books right now, for three different publishers, but I can’t give any more details on those yet.

Mary GrandPre is speaking at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on July 13 at 7 p.m. It costs $15 for members and $20 for the public. For more information, visit www.corcoran.org.

Kodachrome Culture at the National Geographic Museum

I haven't seen this show at the National Geographic Museum yet, but Kodachrome Culture, The American Tourist in Europe, a new photography exhibit, seems to have some of the coolest photos that have been on display here in awhile. The over 100 photos were taken in the '50s and '60s across Europe.

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008

The newest show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, is my favorite of theirs in quite awhile. Eggleston, a pioneer in color photography, shot a wide swath of American culture, from portraits to every day objects. But the Memphis-born artist is at his best with his Southern-tinged snapshots.

The largest exhibition of his work to be staged in the U.S., the show features over 150 photographs. These include some of his early black and white photos, and work from his series Troubled Waters, Graceland, Los Alamos and Election Eve.

I love his work because I have a particular interest in photography that documents the South, and especially old buildings. That's one reason I admire William Christenberry, who just so happens to make an appearance in this show, in portrait form.

Paint Made Flesh at The Phillips Collection

The Phillips Collection recently opened Paint Made Flesh, a show that looks at post-World War II American and British painting, and the way painters depicted flesh. For more, you can go read my interview with artist John Currin, (who spoke there last night).

Above, a portrait of Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon.

Not From Concentrate: A Juicy Art Exhibit

New Sculpture Coming to NGA Garden

The National Gallery of Art announced this week that they commissioned American sculptor Roxy Paine to make a stainless steel Dendroid, what he calls his tree-like sculptures. The piece will be installed this fall.

Graft combines two trees — one gnarled and one smooth — evoking the human desire "to alter and recombine elements of nature, as well as the ever–present tension between order and chaos."

Roxy Paine, Study for Graft, 2008
The artist, courtesy of James Cohan Gallery

A Short History of Color Lecture Series

The National Gallery of Art opens a new lecture series this weekend — a Short History of Color Lecture Series begins with Film Color before 1928.

Sunday's 2 p.m. lecture by Charles O'Brien, School for Studies in Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, will be followed by screenings of short films Fireworks, A Little Jules Verne, Metamorphoses and The Witches Cave, along with hand-painted shorts by George Méliès (who I love) and a restored print of The Londale Operator from 1911.

The second lecture, Technicolor on Location: Unreality in the Great Outdoors, is on June 14 at 2 p.m., and the third, Technical Theater: The Musical, is on June 21 at 2 p.m.

Artomatic Opens Friday

The annual art event kicks off Friday and runs through July 5. There are tons of events scheduled throughout the show's run like music, theater, poetry, dance and workshops. Artomatic moves to the Capitol Riverfront this year, at 55 M St., SE. Visit the web site for a schedule.

Luis Melendez: Master of the Spanish Still Life

Despite a former Washington Post art critic telling me that "still lifes aren't sexy," over breakfast this week, I have a great appreciation for the paintings. As with the Giorgio Morandi show on display through May 24 at the Phillips Collection, Luis Melendez: Master of the Spanish Still Life, which opens Sunday at the National Gallery, offers the same calming, beautiful works. As someone who usually goes more for contemporary art, it's a nice change of pace to walk through a show where there's no frenetic movement and everything is, well, still.

Luis Melendez is a new artist for me, and the 18th century Spanish painter was a student at the Royal Academy of Arts in Madrid, where his father worked, before the two were thrown out over clashing with the administration. Melendez never got to be the royal painter he aspired to, but he was commissioned to paint a series of still lifes in 1771, for the future King Charles IV. These works, which would depict "the four Seasons of the Year… with the aim of composing an amusing cabinet with every species of food produced by the Spanish climate."

The ambitious project, which was canceled and left unfinished, contributed 9 of the 22 paintings on display at the Gallery. The others are from American and European collections, including Still Life with Figs and Bread, which is housed in the National Gallery.

There's a wide array of food depicted here, from figs and game to chocolate and garlic. If the paintings make you hungry, head to the cafe, where local chef Jose Andres has made a special menu. Look for a buffet with a range of Spanish dishes, including a fantastic meatball with plums, which I tried, and you can also order a la carte items like cold almond and garlic soup with shrimp, grapes and Marcona almonds.

Still Life with Cucumbers, Tomatoes, and Kitchen Utensils
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in The Moscow Kremlin

The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in The Moscow Kremlin opens tomorrow at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

The exhibit, which is done in collaboration with The Moscow Kremlin Museums, features 64 objects that were presented as gifts by the Ottomans and Safavids to the Russian Tsars. Gifts were given not just between sovereigns, but were also given by merchant traders who were seeking favors from the court.

The objects are from the 16th and 17th centuries and range from bejeweled bowls to saddles. While some of the pieces went into the royal treasury, some were intended for use by the Tsar and were part of the "Grand Attire" that he would wear for official functions. And many of the pieces were for use by horses, as the animals were sometimes given as gifts. I love how sumptuous these works are — nearly everything made of medal is encrusted with emeralds, rubies, peridots and other gems.

The exhibit runs through September 13.

Icon of the Milk-giving Mother of God Image Credit: The Moscow Kremlin Museums