Richmond: Art on the Edge
My friend Lynn and I recently visited her daughter, who’s a student at VCU. I had been to Richmond before, but the scenes and impressions were all lost to memory and I looked forward to re-discovering the hidden angles and edges of Virginia’s capital city.
Maddie is an art major and was keen to show us not only the galleries near her house in Jackson Ward (J Ward, to those in the know), but the objets d’art nearest to her heart: the neighborhood’s abandoned buildings and empty lots. We called it the “Maddie Tour” and knew we were getting a different look at the city than most visitors.
Maddie’s street is typical for J Ward: red brick townhouses bordered by wrought iron fences. This part of Richmond is second only to New Orleans in its use of decorative cast iron. That, and the 600 homes listed on the National Registry make J Ward great strolling grounds for architecture lovers. The entire district is a National Historic Landmark.
Jackson Ward is like a perfect half moon: exactly in between waxing and waning. We saw lots of boarded up storefronts, but also artsy shops like Quirk (also exhibiting artworks) and hip coffee joints like Lift.
Art galleries have tucked in, enjoying the lower rents of a half-moon part of town. Older businesses, like Eugene’s Barbershop, run by Eugene’s grandchildren, are still getting by, but other spots, like all 22 floors of the Central National Bank building, are only filled with ghosts and crumbling walls. Fearless Maddie led us right to the old revolving door and in we went! I felt like we were walking in an artwork titled “What Was.”
We had lunch inside the honey-colored walls of Mama J’s, a restaurant specializing in comfort food. And you do feel comforted from the moment you walk in hungry until you leave with a belly-full of greens, catfish, and macaroni-&-cheese.
In stylish Carytown later on, popcorn and a $1.99 movie at the lavish landmark of Richmond’s former glory, The Byrd Theatre, was the perfect finish to our day.
Richmond is best known for its history as the Capital of the Confederacy, but art-lovers take note: the city is a haven for artists and rich with design. Even the Police Station looks artsy.
Visit the AVAM “Toot Suite”
If you’ve been meaning to visit the very-cool American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, now’s the time to go. Summertime Thursday evening admissions are free from 5 to 9, followed by movies shown under the stars on a 30-foot outdoor screen.
If you have (or if you are) someone who doesn’t mind a late drive home, this is a bit of heaven: An outdoor movie watched from a nice hillside after taking in a playful and expansive display of works by self-taught artists. You can bring a picnic along or buy popcorn and hotdogs on site.
The movies this summer celebrate the theme of the museum’s biggest current exhibit, "What Makes Us Smile?" co-curated by founder Rebecca Hoffberger, artist Gary Panter, and Simpson’s creator Matt Groening. Comedic films from “Airplane!” to “Some Like it Hot” are scheduled for screening. Click here for the line-up.
The museum itself is a joy. After checking out the whimsical sculpture garden and once you’ve admired Nadya Volicer's “Smile” welcome mat made from recycled toothbrushes, follow a hallway festooned with the boxes of your most beloved childhood board games, dangling model planes and helicopters to the three-floor gallery. It's the kind of place that features a massive collection of Pez dispensers and a Whoopee Cushion bench.
The day I visited, I lingered longest in a space staged as a bedroom featuring a bed with a headboard of beads and beetle wings made into an intricate and spot-on portrait of MAD Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman by artist Patty Kuzbida.
A glass case filled to brimming with vintage toys arranged in a scene both static and busy stood nearby, including a parade of every action figurine from under your brother’s childhood bed snaking around a double-decker London bus and toy cars of all makes and models.
Steps away, a dog made from guitar parts, picks, and sequins posed under an archway of coconut heads; an enormous and elaborate candy-dotted gingerbread house filled a corner of the room; a blue Electrolux refitted into a space rocket dangled from the ceiling; and this quote from Bill Cosby was painted on the wall:
“Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.”
If yours are back home, take them to see a free outdoor movie and the coolest art around at the AVAM in Baltimore.
Don’t Forget the Hirshhorn
The Smithsonian Institution is comprised of 19 different museums and, although its overall impression is best described as venerable, there is a splashy appeal attached to certain galleries which dazzle visitors with diamonds or ruby slippers or Julia Child’s kitchen; with dinosaurs or rocket ships or pandas. In the surge to see I.M. Pei’s East Building or the stunning Kogod Courtyard, the Hirshhorn Museum can get overshadowed.
I have, at times, “forgotten” about the Hirshhorn, only including it on a personal tour at the last minute when a child in my party asks about the doughnut-shaped structure. Strangely for me, in spite of its spacecraft appearance, instead of pulling my attention away from the traditional Smithsonian buildings that surround it, I find that the cement-colored museum fades into the background. But, when someone like a curious child points it out, you are amazed that you could miss it: the architecture really makes a statement.
A 1989 review in the Washington Post had this to say: "[The Hirshhorn is] the biggest piece of abstract art in town---a huge, hollowed cylinder raised on four massive piers, in absolute command of its walled compound on the Mall.... The circular fountain...is a grand concoction...that for good reason has become the museum's visual trademark." (Benjamin Forgey, The Washington Post, November 4, 1989.) I do love the contrast between its tiered outdoor Sculpture Garden emphasizing the pleasure of rectangular spaces and its curved gallery walls, designed explicitly to hold the modern and contemporary works collected by Joseph Hirshhorn throughout his life.
Every time I go, I am reminded of the pleasure of wandering through this drum-shaped building. Walking the circular hallways becomes part of the artistic experience and it is never as crowded on a summer afternoon as the museum where the Hope Diamond sits. You can watch an edgy film in the Black Box theatre or scratch your head over some of the more untraditional works. (I was doing just that when a friendly docent stopped over with thoughts and explanations of a work which allowed me to unfurrow my brow and savor something that challenged my idea of what constitutes art.)
The museum does a great job with programming. There are Friday Gallery Talks, Meet the Artist lectures, After Hours events with music, and inventive workshops for teens. The collection offers Picasso, Matisse, Rodin, Calder, Moore, Hopper and many others, but focuses on art created in the last 50 years. A destination this bold and forward-thinking should not be overlooked. Move it to the top of your Mall destinations!
Past and Present Merge in Fredericksburg, Virginia
For your Memorial Day excursion, I recommend a road trip to Fredericksburg, Virginia. If you are reading this from a desk chair in the DC area, within just an hour and a half you can be in this very walk-able town on the Rappahannock River, rich in Colonial and Civil War history. Mary Washington, George Washington's mother, lived and died in Fredericksburg, and James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, also lived here for some time.
Civil War buffs will know that between December 1862 and May 1864 the four fiercest battles of the Civil War were fought in the surrounding area. The battlefields are part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
A historical sign I read as I strolled around town said, “In May 1864, ambulances…clogged the city’s streets. Virtually every public building became a hospital filled with wounded soldiers….By today’s standards, conditions were gruesome. Mortality rates were high.” I blinked in the sun and while runners in a 5K maneuvered through the streets and shoppers sipping lattes strolled past I tried to imagine the sights and sounds of such horror on these same blocks.
In fact, there are graveyards aplenty and a handful of ghost-themed walking tours offered in Fredericksburg to capitalize on the mayhem and loss in this town, strategically located between Washington, DC and Richmond.
Fill an afternoon visiting Mary Washington’s house, the Masonic cemetery, and museums. Restaurants and shops line the bricked sidewalks. Nearby, the Belmont House offers tours of its gardens, and the home and studio of artist Gari Melchers. (You will learn all about Melchers and wonder why you didn’t know of him before!) Alternatively, Kenmore House, George Washington’s sister’s estate, close by and open for tours, is a great example of Georgian-style architecture. On Saturday and Sundays in June, Shakespeare is performed on the lawn at Kenmore.
History, parks, art, good coffee, shopping and a river: Fredericksburg has something for each member of your traveling party and is an easy drive away. ("Easy," that is, if 95 South were a swift, traffic-free route. Leave early in the morning before the appearance of thick, maddening columns of barely-moving cars!)
A Chilly Easton Weekend
You may not picture yourself in a shore town until summer. And you may think of the Bay Bridge as a conveyor of idling cars and brake lights. That’s why chilly spring is a great time to visit Maryland’s Eastern Shore. You can zip across the bridge at the speed limit and have the place all to yourself.
My husband’s from the Eastern Shore and so is his whole family “all the way back,” so I’ve spent a lot of time in the clustered towns there. St. Michaels is better known as a tourist destination with its shop-lined streets and docks for your sailboat. But Easton is my favorite. Easton is the less-flashy sister---the one with good bones who doesn’t need to be the center of attention.
Here’s my recipe to a perfect spring overnight:
Pinpoint your weekend by checking out the calendar at the Avalon Theatre for your favorite show. The Avalon is an intimate Art Deco performance space downtown and Roseanne Cash, Marshall Crenshaw, and Randy Newman are a few upcoming acts that caught my middle-aged eye. The breathtaking “Live at the Met in HD” series is also broadcast there. Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" is next for screening.
Take a minute to download and print the self-guided walking tour (click here) that points out interesting architecture and historically significant spots in town.
Book a room at the snug Bishop’s House B&B or try the just-renovated, posh Tidewater Inn. You won’t need your car once you’ve gotten settled in.
On Saturday morning you can prowl for antiques and shop at the cute boutiques on Goldsborough Road and Washington Street. I especially love Lizzy Dee. Even though I am too short for the chic and casual clothing there, earrings always fit and so do purses and printed scarves. Stop into wooden-floored Crackerjacks for a toy-laden nostalgia trip and leave with a yoyo or 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Make sure to get onion rings and a shake at the soda fountain at Hill’s Drugstore to reinforce the Mayberry feel of the place. (Believe me, there’s a lunch counter; just keep walking straight past the shelves stocked with aspirin bottles and ice packs…)
The attractive Art Academy closes at 3 on Saturdays, so go after lunch and amble through. Afterwards, you can use your handy downloaded walking tour map to become the Easton expert that you’ve always wanted to be or rent bikes for the trails around town. Another great feature of the Eastern Shore: No hills!
Have dinner before the show at the artsy Out of the Fire where you can tuck into a plate of crispy polenta with wild mushroom ragout.
Head home right after Sunday breakfast. Like many small towns, Easton closes up tight to fill up its 38 churches.
Maybe I’ll move to Easton and open a rollicking Sunday coffee shop and feed muffins to all the visitors who find nothing but locked doors elsewhere in town; or maybe a tattoo parlor to get people ready for the beach come summertime…
The Value of the News
I listen to NPR and read the Post and the New York Times---I like to know what’s going on. And I like museums. But the Newseum never really appealed. It seemed less like a delightful afternoon and more like an idea born because, well, a museum of news had to be created just to use the name “newseum.” And I was rankled by the price.
When you live near Washington, D.C., you get used to going to the world’s most fascinating exhibits for FREE. You can stroll through the sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn, gaze at impressionist masterpieces at I.M. Pei’s famous East Building, and ogle Dorothy’s ruby slippers at the Museum of American History, all at no cost.
Spoiled by this bounty, I couldn’t imagine paying $21.95 to enter the Newseum. “Are you kidding?” (asks my stingy side). “So much money to visit a museum of news?”
So it wasn’t until Groupon offered $10 tickets that I could even summon the spirit to go. I talked my friend Laura into joining me. And in we went, feeling dutiful.
Inside the 7-level, 250,000 square-foot space we found pairings of news and history. Artifacts from major historical events, like panels from the Berlin Wall or the mangled antenna from the top of the World Trade Center, are presented next to relevant news reports.
Around the WTC wreckage: a wall of framed front pages illustrated with appropriately garish color photographs and 72-point type both echoing and shaping the world’s reaction to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
Near the Berlin Wall panels, we stood in the shadow of a Checkpoint Charlie watchtower, captivated by grainy black and white images of NBC News’s footage of East Germans crawling through tunnels to freedom in the West.
You can also follow the news about Hurricane Katrina as it unfolded---from the initial weather warnings to the still unbelievable images of acres of strewn splinters that were once houses in Mississippi and of people desperate for rescue from their rooftops in the Ninth Ward.
In the three hours Laura and I had carved out for the Newseum, we visited perhaps one half of the exhibits. Entry tickets allow re-entry the following day---sadly, not an option for either of us. I left reluctantly, realizing that I’d happily spend the money to come again and feeling much more thoughtful about the meaning of "free."
Waxing Philosophical about Madame Tussaud’s
When I heard that Mme. Tussaud’s, the famous wax museum, was opening a branch in DC some years back, I rolled my eyes. Why go see wax figures of people when I lived in a place where I could visit actual sites of historical importance? Why see a fake Abe Lincoln when I could go to Ford’s Theatre or the Lincoln Memorial?
Touring a museum filled with famous people made of wax was cheating: cheap thrills and no intellectual heft.
I'd been taught to think this way in the eighties when I was part of a student group in London. Our cool professor pooh-poohed the idea of visiting the original Mme. Tussaud’s there in favor of more nourishing pursuits. For me, it was the first lesson in being a discerning traveler: some places had value, others didn't.
It stuck. Twenty-five years later, when I agreed to let my teenage children and niece choose a downtown destination on a recent outing, I cringed when they picked Mme. Tussaud's.
I decided I'd try to sneak "teaching moments" in wherever I could (and hope that no one I knew saw me going in the doors).
A bit of research revealed that there are not only celebrity and sports figures at the DC Tussaud's, but political figures as well. Surely some wax version of a president would spark a mini history lesson.
And a collaboration I found advertised online between the museum and local libraries ("Wax Figure Hunt at your Local DC Library!) let me know that the wax museum was trying to brush up its airhead reputation. They'd even dedicated a room to facts and figures relating to the making of wax figures---an average of 200 measurements for each face! Every single hair inserted individually!
But ultimately, even though I made them learn that the wax man with the impressive mutton-chop sideburns was President Chester A. Arthur, visiting Mme. Tussaud's was just one big photo op. (Ropes that used to keep tourists from nearing the figures have been removed and interaction is encouraged.)
After giving our children enriching opportunities and exposing them to challenging ideas, coaxing (or maybe dragging) them through their share of impressionist art exhibits and making them sit quietly at the ballet, appreciate Shakespeare, and stay awake at a symphony, they are, culturally speaking, quite well-fed. A little dessert from time to time should be okay.
It can be fine, once in a while, to pose like you’re friends with Malcolm X or Katie Couric; to pretend that Julia Roberts is leaning on your living room chair; to get in J. Edgar Hoover’s face; or to get a picture with Jackie O. Right?
What do you think? Can you explain the strange pleasure of staring at a wax Tom Cruise?
The Peacock Room
Thomas Jeckyll, interior designer and architect, was close to finishing his big 1876 commission: to design a dining room for shipping magnate Frederick Leyland which would fittingly show off Leyland’s collection of blue & white porcelain. A friend of Leyland’s, the famous painter James McNeill Whistler, happened to be working in the front hallway of the same house adding embellishments and decoration. He suggested to Jeckyll that a little yellow in the walls would be just the thing to tie in the centerpiece artwork: his own La princesse du pays de la porcelaine that hung above the fireplace. This portrait of a sinuous and elegant princess dressed in Asian clothing defined the room (and was most decidedly NOT “Whistler’s Mother”).
Leyland authorized the little dabs of color here and there that Whistler thought would finish off the room and left for a business trip. Jeckyll, another brilliant design complete, left for other pursuits.
After that, what happened foreshadows “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition.” Alone at the house, Whistler fancied up the room with gold paint and peacock feather designs on the ceiling; he painted on top of the leather wainscoting with a Prussian blue, and created ornate peacocks in gilded paint on the shutters. Proud as…well…a peacock of his work and eager to show it off, he invited friends (including the press) over for lavish parties in the room.
The story goes that Whistler excitedly informed his out-of-town patron that he’d transformed the room into a state of glorious perfection. Then he presented a very large bill. The wrangle that followed over payment and permission is famously illustrated on the wall across from La princesse: two showy peacocks---one, sporting ruffled silver chest feathers that conjured up Leyland’s typical attire stands, plumage in full array, amidst a mass of spilled coins; and another, more composed, with a curled forelock similar to Whistler’s hairstyle, poses across from it. Here is a spat, immortalized, and available to see by anyone who visits Washington D.C.'s Freer Gallery.
Whistler titled the mural, “Art and Money; Or The Story of a Room.” Leyland must have been at least as amused as he was insulted---he allowed the painting to stay. (But I like to think he wore fewer ruffles after that.)
I wasn't too worried about the original room designer, Jeckyll---all in a day's work, I assumed. But then I read this from his biography, "His disastrous experience with James Whistler over the decoration of Leyland's dining room (the notorious 'Peacock' room) precipitated a mental collapse, and he spent the last years of his life in a Norwich asylum."
Art Appreciation
Friends were staying in Baltimore for the weekend and we decided to meet for a look around The Walters Museum in the Mount Vernon Cultural District. The Walters has an exceptional collection of art objects: Paleolithic axe heads, mummies of women and cats, and child-sized suits of armor.
Roman sculpture in a sun-filled, marble-floored courtyard, Impressionist and Renaissance paintings, vases from Ancient Greece, Faberge eggs, Tiffany vases, ossuaries, and sarcophagi.
Some rooms are so crowded with ornately framed artworks, that there’s a Victorian salon feel to the place. It freed me from the need to approach each individual piece with academic intent, absorbing and retaining information from the accompanying information plaque. Instead, I stood happily immersed in the visual cacophony.
The building (actually three conjoined and each with its own architectural style) is a delight to walk through. The center, original, museum has a room you can’t miss. The name alone will make you want to grab your keys and drive north: The Chamber of Wonders.
My friend Gail describes visiting the Walters to be like rambling around in a curio cabinet and the Chamber of Wonders is the distillation of that feeling. Inside are the wonders of Nature on display in shadow boxes and glass-fronted bureaus and hung on every inch of wall space.
Cheetah skins and giant mounted butterflies; the head of a moose; shelves of seashells; enormous beetles pinned in a case; the full body of an alligator above the doorway that reads, “Through Such Variety is Nature Beautiful.”
The Egyptian Room has an entirely different feel. The space is hushed, the lighting muted, the artifacts in spare groupings.
It’s a room to whisper in. You’d have (barely) heard me say, “Look, a cat mummy,” before I tiptoed over to a set of mounted carved tablets etched and painted in 2000 BC (and still looking good!)
And when you think you can’t possibly be any more amazed, walk past the statue of George Washington atop the obelisk just outside the Charles Street exit and cross the street to The Peabody Institute.
You can walk right in to the famous library there. “The Peabody Stack Room,” according to the Institute's website, “contains five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies, which rise dramatically to the skylight 61 feet above the floor.” It could be an adjunct to the Chamber of Wonders: a work of art in its own right.
Skeletons in the Closet at Walter Reed
For over a decade we’ve lived a few short miles from the National Museum of Health and Medicine, located on the sprawling grounds of the Walter Reed Medical Center in Northwest D.C. Friends visited the museum and left me with a vague impression of anatomical curiosities, some dating back to the 19th century, all displayed in dusty cases for public viewing. Dani and I decided our younger kids were finally old enough to handle whatever this museum could throw at us, so off we went. (Truth be told, it was probably our own squeamish stomachs that had kept us from visiting until now).
One of the guilty pleasures of touring this particular site is the thrill of being waved through gates, after showing proper I.D., and driving through acres of OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. Parking couldn’t be simpler – there’s a semicircular drive just in front of the entrance, and if you hand over your driver’s license at the front desk, you’re given a permit to place on the dashboard of your car for free on-site parking.
The museum itself is divided into sections that are partly chronological, partly thematic. Probably the most mesmerizing area is the one showcasing real human body parts that have been malformed as a result of diseases or genetic abnormalities.
Every smoker should be required to gaze upon the diseased lungs, although the “city dweller” lung did not look appreciably healthier than, say, the coal miner’s lung.
There is a leg amputated from a victim of elephantiasis, a cirrhosis-filled liver that was gigantic and spongy, a 40-pound scrotum, photos of gangrenous toes, and row upon row of fetuses, some perfectly formed, others shockingly twisted or overgrown in all the wrong places. Certainly for me, and perhaps for any mother, the bottles of fetuses were the most horrifying, yet fascinating. One jar has a set of twins, mirror images of each other, conjoined through the torso.
In addition to this chamber of horrors, there are major exhibits devoted to describing MASH units in Korea and the development of techniques for surgical procedures on battlefields.
The Civil War is explored extensively, and the selection of arms, legs and skulls punctured by shrapnel or, in one stunning case, a cannon ball, is gripping. One room contains a gallery of artworks made by doctors, patients and others involved with victims of warfare who in many cases lost limbs. The depictions of the myriad ways people enduring such horrific injuries cope and move on (or not) are especially moving. Another area describes in great detail the science of pathology and the difficult work of identifying remains.
Finally, and perhaps most famously, the bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln is on prominent display, together with bone fragments from the President’s skull and a piece of sleeve dotted with his blood from the attending surgeon’s shirt, which the surgeon’s wife carefully preserved and labeled.
It’s hard to say exactly who the target audience for this type of museum would be. Dani and I agreed that it was challenging to imagine a group of female 40-somethings agreeing to meet there and head for lunch afterward. I think my teenage son would be utterly disgusted, yet secretly intrigued. My 13 year-old daughter found it kind of gross, kind of boring. Dani’s 13 year-old son found it pretty interesting.
Certainly there is no other museum in the area where you will hear a woman ask the gift shop cashier, “May I buy a stuffed louse?” She went on to ask, “Is the giant hairball in storage? I didn’t see it on this visit.” (The fact that this museum even had a gift shop was a surprise, and yes, there are Beanie-Baby-sized microbes for sale, along with dust mites and other creepy plush toys. I’d like to visit that factory in China.) And she’d simply overlooked the hairball, extracted from a 12 year-old girl and perfectly preserved in the shape of her stomach.
But enough – just go, and bring your curious adolescents and budding med-school students with you. It’s a great test of fortitude.