Cold and wet but warm and friendly

Busy all day yesterday at the Antarctic Treaty meeting in Baltimore.  This time I found the commuter train, direct to a station immediately next to the Convention Center so I avoided the taxi ride from the Amtrak station.  But did I get on a historical train run for rail enthusiasts, or a commuter train? Not sure.  Only a few passengers northbound at approximately 715a, and fewer coming back at 330p.  Three cars, they really only needed 20% of one.  I thought about the Cambridge to Kings X 0715 train, one of the busiest in England we read, 8 cars with 150% passenger load to seating capacity.  I found today's train convenient, inexpensive, and pleasant, even if old, slow and under-used.  On return to Washington I had a working dinner with a colleague here, then finally returned to our apartment.  Gus had explored westward from here, farther into Virginia, on my bike for a couple hours - another good reason to have brought it. Pack it up tomorrow.

Today we braved the rain to visit several museums.  We used Dave's personal preference route, starting at the Renwick then to the Freer and finishing at the Sackler.  I do this route to view works made by artists who work with their hands.  Not in painting and sculpture, but in wood-working, weaving, glass and ceramic making, calligraphy.  I know each of these museums has pieces that I enjoy for their appearance and their craft in their permanent collections and I know that I have a good chance of seeing fresh (to me) works of the same type.  I explained my reasoning to Gus and we set out.

We had excellent luck today.  In the Renwick we found a special exhibit of drawings, furniture, and decorative pieces by Greene & Greene, early 20th century US architects whose work I greatly admire (many books in my design library and strong influences on several of my own furniture pieces).  I should say also that I particularly admire their Swedish builders - whose work got very nice acknowledgement in this exhibition!  In the chronology of the exhibit we could see the Greene brothers' work develop from primary influence of Morris and Stickley, with their own gentling touches, through the incorporation of Japanese decorative features, to the almost abstract design of their final products.  Gus and I enjoyed this chronology and had a close look and thorough discussion of many of the furniture pieces: what they had added, how they had built (the Swedes, actually), similar features and techniques that we could recognize from my own work.   We also enjoyed a quick glimpse of the Renwick's massive collection and display of Catlin paintings of the high plains Native Americans.  

In the Freer we found a very nice special exhibit of Japanese use of gold and sliver leaf, inlay and paint in screens, boxes, and paintings.  We felt amazed at the quality of work and of the luminous effects, and we identified distinct design features that clearly influenced the Greene's work.  We also saw amazing and beautiful glass work and calligraphy and enjoyed the large Japanese screens on display.  We walked underground (out of the rain) to the Sackler and, tired by this time, sought out only the display of contemporary Japanese ceramics.   But what a find, in the bottom-most gallery, eight pieces of the most amazing hues, patterns and designs. Awesome, unbelievable what these artists have achieved.  Hand work and artistry of the highest order, just what we wanted to see and a nice completion to our visits.  I felt that the museum staff welcomed us everywhere we stopped.  

We entered the National Gallery, but only to walk to the below-ground restaurant for late lunch. We didn't find anything particularly interesting in the East Building (although we stared for a while at the Calder drifting above us), at least within our focus on hand-made work, so we walked up to the metro and came back to the hotel.  An hour or so later, my sister Barb came out to join us for the evening - she had meetings (on health care, of course) yesterday and today. We went again to the local roast chicken restaurant around the corner, even warmer and friendlier tonight with the dining room full of families getting out of the cold rain.  We came back here to talk and look at videos and pictures and then Gus and I walked Barb back to the metro station.  We might have bought an ice cream or two, and a few Clif Bars for our airplane journeys tomorrow.