the fun never ends

Wow! Nearly a week has gone by with nary a post on my DC comings and goings!

According to my daily planner, on Tuesday I attended the first of my Brown Bag lunch series (which I put together for the professional benefit of the interns). The first speaker I invited was the department head with the most confusingly named department! I learned a heck of a lot about research projects going on at our museum, our use of technology, and our digital catalog. As the only graduate student in attendance, I was of course the only intern with any questions for the real, live museum professional, but that's okay.

On Wednesday, I was sent to a meeting on eldercare with a mission: determine organizations and people to whom we can contact group tours. I have an extremely vague new project, to "market group tours." Those really are the sum total of my instructions. So, away I go! I'm sure that the elderly are a great place to start, don't you? Who else has the time and interest for an activity that happens at either 11:45 am or 3:30 pm?

On the upside, I visited the National Museum of African Art. It was great! It's one of those SmAthsonians that you have to really hunt down; it's subterranean, to begin with, and sort of lost in the Castle complex. I literally ran into it by accident, actually, and I'm so glad I did. There was an amazing exhibit up, which closes this coming week -- the mythology of Mami Wata, an African water spirit whose presence has heavily influenced diaspora art. AKA, mermaids!! Very exciting stuff, and my computer is denying my ability to directly provide a link to the site, so check it out.

On Thursday, I failed to attend a screening on Handmade Nation, followed by a book signing by the author. I missed it because the event was held at the Renwick Gallery, not at the American Art Museum, which promoted the event. I know they are related, and I guess I should have double-checked on the room more than 10 minutes before I intended to leave the office, but still. It's sad. But why did they schedule it for 12:00 pm anyway? What a dumb time! The prime demographic -- crafty young women such as myself, I presume -- are also working ladies who would have to sacrifice their lunch hour in order to attend, so it's doubly strange that the event happened in Foggy Bottom as opposed to the centrally located, downtown museum... whatever. Wouldn't it be interesting to ask the public programmers what they were thinking?

On Friday I only popped in to the office for an hour. My supervisor gave me the OK for this, so I conducted an extensive self-guided tour of the National Gallery of Art. Yes, I've been in before, but it's huge and to know you can spend all day inside is just amazing. If you're a geek like me. Anyway, I made it over to the East Building for the first time; home of "modern art" and an incredibly weird waste of space. Literally; the building is amazing but also amazingly empty. I learned that I hate Philip Guston and adore Stanley William Hayter. It rained. I attended another IMAX film, on dinosaurs. The fun never ends.

Saturday: The Phillips Collection turns out to be one of the absolute best places in DC, hands down. I loved the collection, the philosophy, the exhibits -- Paint Made Flesh is the title, I believe -- and the fact that I got in for free. It's in Dupont Circle, which is a great neighborhood with a tiny bookstore named Kramerbooks. People here seem to be very excited about Kramerbooks, with good reason; it's not pretentious at all and has lots of lovely books / a bar. However, it's the size of my appartment (back home). If they ever visit Powell's, they will never again be content with their lifestyle, I thought to myself, pitying the East Coasters.

But it was nice, and I attended a BBQ full of international relations workers. Boy. I can't remember rightly what me and my friends back home discuss during a Saturday night BBQ, but it's rarely abortion and the implications of ostentatious gay pride parades (does it help or hinder the gay rights movement? Discuss!). I, meanwhile, wonder if anyone in the party is interested in Ovid. I can talk to you about Ovid. The Venezualan economy? After three drinks? Boy. After awhile, my inner anthropologist just kicks back and enjoys the show.

Gosh, I really need to update more, because I'm tired of writing... but STILL NOT DONE!! Because in DC, the fun never ends.

Today I crawled all over Georgetown. It's so cute. I love the architecture and the tiny little houses, and upscale shops and wholesale snobbery. Rich people do some things right, after all, like Dumbarton Oaks! I just kind of ran into it -- that happens a lot, I guess -- and lo and behold, there's a museum inside full of Byzantine, Greek and pre-Columbian art! Right up my alley, folks! I was very excited, of course. And of nearly equal excitement is the fact that for a mere $5, you can frolic on their extensive garden grounds. I felt very Elizabeth Bennett about the whole thing, and read my book whilst overlooking the Lover's Lane Pool, as the summer sun sank into the embrace of an azure sky.

Up next: am I going to New York City next weekend? Am I??

Projected plans for early July

Monday: Errands Day (put on jogging clothes, but neglect to jog).

Tuesday: Watch a discussion on the work of Jean Shin, led by a conservationist from Lunder, the artist herself and an AAM curator.

Wednesday: Smithsonian Intern Ice Cream Social at the Postal Museum. This excitement will be followed up by docent training, on the forthcoming Daguerre exhibit.

Thursday: Options include a curator-led talk about Margaret Sanger (oooh, controversy!) or a panel discussion over at the Hirshorn, whose theme is basically "art critics vs. curators."

Friday: Morning field trip to the US Holocaust Museum with the interns. Evening plans may include an IMAX show or the Jazz Garden, if I have any energy left.

Saturday: Here's hoping that my special tour of a certain world-famous house won't be cancelled...

Sunday: The Lord's Day, of course. Reflect heavily on all the important work I have accomplished, such as background checks, flyer designs, networking, and receiving my Smithsonian library card.

Post 4th: Me Barry, Neil.

I did not make it out to Artomatic this weekend. My afternoon plans wrinkled up (aka, a fire alarm cancelled the movie we had bought tickets to see on the Big Day Off), which consequently led to other lazy Fursday activities, which bumped Artomatic, which I dimly remembered on Sunday evening. Ah well. I'll pretend it was nine stories worth of Thomas Kincade / American-flag-wrapped-puppy art.

I did manage to have a great informational interview, on Fursday morning, with the Education director of a certain non-profit museum in town, whose collection is pretty great (aka, European). She has a degree in Arts Administration, too! We commiserated over art historians.

The 4th of July in Washington, Distrct of Columbia?!?!? Just how amazing is that, you ask? Well, I avoided most public festivities, so I really can't vouch for it. I did not join the typical "fustercluck of humanity on America's Mall;" instead it was a dinner party on Capitol Hill. The big concert was being broadcast in the background of this intimate, elite event; we leisurely strolled over to the Capitol once Barry Manilow appeared on the telly -- oh, how I was excited to hear the live sweet strains of Barry, drifting up the hill (like acidophilus)! -- but alas, the program's time delay was deceptively long. We showed up to hear no Barry, and see only half the fireworks (slightly obscured by the blinding lights of the concert directly below us). No Barry, I tell you! I watched one lonely drunk girl pump her fist to the silent show of sky-fire; then we headed back to the appartment for more tapenade and shrimp.

Where, amazingly, the fireworks were still on the television! And un-ironically accompanied by Neil Diamond's "Coming to America," which almost literally killed me.

Still, I am counting my blessings: no blood, shattered glass, firework mishaps or 911 calls this year! In my immediate vicinity, at least.

Also of general interest: MTV's "Real World: DC" is now filming in Adams Morgan, and on Sunday I witnessed filming. It was creeeeeeeepy. I and a mystery friend were simply walking through a quiet residential neighborhood on a mellow weekend evening, when we noticed three camera men running backwards before a group of overly angular and well-dressed tweens. I mean, young adults. We saw the whole cast; evidently an "action shot" of them walking together, in total silence, down a silent street. Being gawked at by people like me (less angular thanks to pasta). Based on this glimpse, I believe their names will prove to be Jack, Noho, Shannika, Skot, Allyson, Pug, and Blanket. Their house is very large, and conveniently located near a mini-Safeway.

That's not the "Real World: DC" at all, yo! Which reminds me, I need tomatoes.

Fursday is Awesome!

Fursday is what I dub the Thursdays preceding Federal holiday Fridays. Today was a very happy Fursday!

It began with my first gallery check, which turned out to not mean leisurely walking around the museum before hours, ensuring that everything looks lovely and is accounted for. I was handed a Swiffer (tm), a rag and Brillianize and was instructed to 1. Check the galleries and 2. Dust the artwork / wipe down the plexiglass cases.

Yes, it is pathetic that I was instantly excited about this. But I like art, and I like to play house, and I like the fact that I was allowed to (sort of) touch priceless and incredible works of real, real art. By touch, I guess I mean Swiffer (tm). I swiffered Marcel Duchamp's face! I swiffered Bob Hope! Through plexiglass!!!

Next I joined a tour (which I coordinated) of the Lunder Conservation Center. Conservation is amazing. This center is absolutely beautiful, and it was very exciting to see x-rays of John McQueen basketry and marble statues whose appendages had broken off during unloading (foot re-attached, hand still disembodied). Our guide was excellent, too, and I know I learned more about museum collections and conservation in one hour at LCC than I have all year at UO. Sorry, school, but sometimes practice defeats theory.

I tried to attend the famed Penn Quarter farmer's market, but -- I have learned that a "farmer's market" in DC actually translates as "one block's worth of fresh produce, but mostly stupid flowers and Buffalo steaks."

Saddened, I visited Georgetown, because Zara and Anthropologie usually cheer me up. They did. I topped off the lovely day with a visit to Five Guys and ohmygoditwasreallysogood. The beef melted in my mouth like delicious, buttery animal flesh, topped with grilled onions and grilled mushrooms.

And now it's evening, and I must get a bit of research done so that when I meet the Education Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts tomorrow morning, their take on public programming will be fresh in my mind.

Happy 4th of July!

A Friggin' Great Week.

Oh, the dizzying excitement of Intern and Docent Program Management! I must say, this week was quite busy in terms of all my little projects and events, and it felt all so Smithsoniany.

So: working for a large museum really does seem to mean that you're going to be rather constrained to your own department, but fortunately my position inherently requires interaction with every department and every supervisor. I tried to work that angle this week; I invitee our Exhibitions director in to talk with the interns about her position with NPG. I was absorbed by both her description of her tremendously huge and complex job, as well as amazed by her career path -- she began as an admin assistant, and earned a degree in Arts Administration (!) only four years ago.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday I attended a pan-institutional panel presentation about strategic collaborations. Although it wasn't perhaps the most accessible speech, what I found intriguing were the audience reactions to the top-level presentation -- "strategic collaborations" are clearly important and necessary in the big picture, but I was reminded that within an institution as big as SI, the mere feat of accomplishing museum-museum collaboration is itself both daunting and the daily reality faced by the majority of museum employees.

I also attended the Folklife Festival (Welsh poetry and pints on the Mall!) right after using up my weekly IMAX ticket (Deep Sea 3D). The Folklife Festival is as much as it can be. I'm not critiquing it too much; I'm just saying that I have a newfound respect for myself and my former FAIS staff, because quite frankly we were able to put on a pretty comparable event without the benefit of a $------- budget. I guess I was hoping for more than a handful of tents where groups of tourists awkwardly stood around an artisan, but in terms of a program model that facilitates a cultural education event for thousands of transient tourists, in 90 degree weather in the middle of a dusty, unshaded field ... well, I guess they accomplish their goals. And it's cool to see traditional artisans being supported and all that. I guess there's just no substitute for the real thing, which is a fairly insurmountable challenge.

Oh, and they're filming a Paul Rudd movie in DC, and they were setting up a film shoot outside my happy hour on Thursday. But Paul didn't appear. Why must he play with my heart?

But the more important thing I should document about Thursday (pre-Happy Hour) was the Smithsonian Intern Networking Fair. Kassia: thank you. Thank you for the AAA Symposium last Spring, in which I took cheesy workshops on networking that -- holy cow! -- PAID OFF. I networked like a muthaf*cka and came home with about six business cards in my pocket. And, adorably, my undergraduate interns clung to my side like nervous little lambs, so I gave them an impromptu "go get 'em" talk about elevator speeches. Me, telling people how to benefit from a networking fair. I tell ya, if I hadn't attended last Spring I too would have been nervous and self-effacing. But now I'm a beast! A beast!!

I had a chance also to visit the National Museum of the American Indian (it's true, the fried bread is amazing) and the National Gallery of Art. NMAI deserves a trip back; sadly I only had time for one floor, but I rather loved its honest and to-the-point presentation of how badly Natives have been screwed by a lethal combo of guns, bibles and disease. It's truly an amazing and brave exhibit -- geez, and there are still three floors to visit!

Oh, National Gallery. I love you so much. I love your European art, because that's what I've studied and lovelovelove. So pretty. Oh Vermeer, and Leyster, and El Greco and Boucher. Everyone who got an internship there pretty must have began studying art history whilst in the womb, I guess; they'd better appreciate where they are. Again, I only had an hour, but I happily devoted it to 16th century Italian/French ornamental sculpture and ceramics. So intent was I studying some plates that illustrate scenes from Ovid's Metamorphosis that a security guard came over and asked if I am studying them in school. No, teaching them, I said. "Wait, what? How old are you, girl? You can't be a day past 21." Hee hee!

I next attended Jazz in the NGA Sculpture Garden for 45 minutes, which is insane given how hot and sweaty the earth gradually became... but it's fun to sit beneath a giant rabbit sculpture and listen to Georgetown types talk about their upcoming weekend "on the boat." I considered powering on to finally visit Artomatic tonight, an artist's co-op with some good buzz, but in the end nature chased me back to my dorm room with a wind-whipped frenzy of hail, thunder and lightning. Weather here be crazy.

Tomorrow I'm really serious about getting into free Saturdays at the Corcoran, but I have also neglected the shops of Georgetown for far too long. And there's that whole Vietnam War Memorial to find, and I just learned that there's a mall near the Pentagon. I've got a lot of mixed up priorities.