Temperature: 94 (this makes this the 12th day of 90+ days)
Dew Pt: 65! Wind: 5-10
Breakfast: Port of Piraeus, Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st St
. I had an English muffin with cheese, tomato & scrambled egg w/tea
Lunch: The Building museum, wonderful hardy gazpacho with tomatoes, zucchini a bit of hot peppers and other stuff.
Dinner: We finally found C. F. Folks, but wasn't open so we went across the street to The Georgetown Seafood Grill at 120019thSt.NW. (202-530-0912) S had a combo shrimp/crab cake cocktail. I had Maryland crab soup (more like a slightly spicy tomato soup). We both had a crab cake sandwich with slightly spiced fries and Cole slaw. Quite good. I had a key lime pie and S had apple crisp. Our waiter, Eric was very attentive and caring.
Before we had breakfast, we stopped a small newsstand.
As we walked out of the store, S glanced to her right and noticed a striking sculpture of a man and women in an embrace. It appeared as though they were ballet dancers and the male was suspended in air entwined with her and about to consummate a kiss. The morning sunlight caressed the bronze sculpture just right
. The light was perfect and I took a lot of photos with the Olympus 3030 digcam.
It is at the Galleria at Lafayette Centre, and the sculptor is Barry Woods Johnston. The piece is entitled "Wedlock." It was commissioned for the Lafayette Centre and installed in 1980 and is 19-6" high.
"He articulates this meaning through gesture and pose. Volumes are summarized in the subtle turn of wrist or the fingers of a hand. 'As a pianist, I am particularly sensitive to the expressive power of hands and feet," the artist explains. "They can be used to extend the energy of a sculpture out into the surrounding space, as in Wedlock, or they can focus energy, increasing a sculpture's intensity.' Every aspect of his work amplifies the power of emotional experience to be drawn from each piece. Johnston comfortably combines arte nouveau and Gothic elements in one sculpture, while mannerist and impressionist techniques harmonize in another - in his unique modern fusion, all work towards the goal of revealing our humanity
." Steve Mirabella, Art Critic
"Johnston's sculpture presents a positive view of humanity akin to the classical masters. His figures display finely modeled surfaces with well-defined musculature and clear anatomical structure. Yet they incorporate a fresh, modern quality of design that speaks to the present." Rolly T. Strauss, founding editor of Sculptors International magazine
It is like a ballet dance of two figures.
We then took the metro to the National Building Museum, & spent most of the late morning into the mid after noon, since I did quite a bit of photography and viewing two exhibits. Susan spent a lot of time in the great gift shop picking up holiday gifts. She got so much stuff; she is having them ship the stuff to us.
** Nat. Building Museum, 401 F St. NW bet 4th & 5th, The Museum has "the most astonishing interior space in America": Phillip Johnson
.
Had light lunch at "High Noon" café in the atrium.
We met a group of young very prosperous Chinese businessmen led by young Chinese woman who did their terrific translation & who spoke perfect English. They had started in LA, and then gone to San Diego, SF, Las Vegas and now were in DC. From here they were going to NYC, Boston, Toronto, and Vancouver. It seemed they had an interest in the major western large ports due to imports from China. They had been invited to the opening of a new expanded port in LA.
She had learned& taught English in China. She did not have the sing-songy high pitched odd pronuntcion that often a Chinese person displays. We complimented here on how well she did.
She spoke of the hi interest of the younger generation with all things western and using that as a standard and goal to aspire to.
After lunch we visited the DC Botanical Garden and Conservatory
Stef made the unfortunate luck of being approached and distracted by an amateur digital photo that had a "bigger" mega pixel camera than Stef
. We were both photographing the same yellow flowers in the National Botanical garden's Conservatory just in front of the Capitol. He had a new 4 or 5 Meg pixel Nikon that seemed smaller than my Oly 3030 and didn't agree with me that shooting digital was a drag because of having to use the LQD for good composition (that often drove me nuts in the sun) consuming batteries and memory on chips. He said he had gotten some great enlargements. The bugger seemed to follow me around from flower to flower!
As S & I entered the orchard room we went nuts! S kept finding really wonderful orchids to photograph. She was right. They had spray misters up in the ceiling that occasionally created an appropriate environment for the plants but was not too hospitable to my camera! I got some very nice shots.
Building Museum, Botanical Garden, great sculpture
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
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