Wisconsin Journal

Number 24

12 April 1998



It looks like spring is arriving. Daffodils are blooming, and leaves

are coming out on the willow trees. However, every Madison local

I talk to thinks there will be one final snow storm.



Business took me to Washington, DC at the end of March. I was lucky

in that the cherry blossoms were in full bloom then, which is a little

earlier than usual. El Nino ain't all bad. I flew in the evening

before a meeting that started the next afternoon, so in the morning

I headed down to the Tidal Basin with another OGI faculty attending

the same meeting. The traffic situation seemed hopeless nearby, so

we parked on the other side of the Potomac and walked across.



The first cherry trees were given to the US by Japan after WWI. They

ring the tidal basin, and are tall enough that you can stroll under

them. The first Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington was in 1935,

so they must have been well established by then. There have been

other gifts of trees since, and cuttings from the capital cherry

trees have been sent back to Japan when a particular species there

was dying off. The trees were just beginning to lose a few petals,

so every time the breeze came up we had flurries of "snow".



We walked through the new FDR memorial, which is laid out as four

"rooms", one for each term of his presidency. I entered in the last

term and exited at the first, which makes it look like Roosevelt's

war policies caused the Great Depression, but it impressed me greatly,

nonetheless. From there we walked along the Reflecting Pool to the

Lincoln Memorial. I can't remember ever having visited it before

on any of my previous trips to DC. Since the scale of it surprised

me, I suspect I haven't been there before. From the Lincoln Memorial

I headed off on my own, and walked through the Vietnam memorial.

For those of you who haven't seen it, the basic plan is a pair

of ramps that descend from street level, faced along one side with

polished black stone tablets engraved with all the US servicemen

and women missing or killed in action. The names are ordered by

date of death, but there are indexes available nearby that can get

you from alphabetical to chronological order. Lots of wreaths, notes

and momentos left by visitors. The Park Service periodically collects

and preserves them, and you can see a sample at one of the Smithsonian

museums (American History, I think).



I headed north off the Mall towards the Renwick, but found myself

passing by the Corcoran Gallery, and so detoured inside. There was

a "Gospel Jazz Brunch" in full swing--maybe this is the trendy DC

alternative to church on Sunday mornings. I saw the senior exhibition

for students at the Corcoran School of Art, and a couple temporary

exhibits. One was of Ida Applebourg, who does representational

portrayals of people with slightly incongruous elements added.

The other was called something like "Speaking of Art", and contained

paintings and photos based on works in the Corcoran collection,

overlaid with journal entries by the artist. The highlight of

the museum, in my opinion, is the "Salon Dore'", which is a room

that was originally part of a private residence in Paris, constructed

around 1770. It's a white room with extensive gilded carving and

floral paintings in the panels. The panels for the room (and a

ceiling mural from another room) were bought by William Clark, an

industrialist from Montana, who was also a US senator. He installed

them in a mansion he was building in New York City. He left the room

and other parts of his collection to the Corcoran on his death in

1925, and the museum constructed a special wing to accomodate the

room and some of the rest of his collection. The room looks wonderful,

having been restored between 1990 and 1993 (new gilding, new paint

and cleaning of the ceiling mural). On my way out, there was

some kind of painting demonstration, which seemed to be by artists

specializing in trompe l'oeil techniques. The best thing I saw

was a four-foot-high cylindar that looked convincingly like black

marble (so much so that I did a double take when the artist picked

it up with one hand to show someone it was hollow inside).



After my detour, I continued to the Renwick to see an exhibit on

the Arts and Crafts movement in Boston. The Society of Arts and

Crafts was founded in Boston in 1897, and consisted about half of

artisans and half of patrons. It promoted good design and hand

craftmanship, in response to mass produced items with excessive

ornamentation. Comparing it to the Wisconsin Arts and Crafts show,

I would say the Boston artists showed more British influence, which

probably arises from a strong colonial revival trend in Boston.

Both areas turned out a lot of pottery, while Boston had more

book art, jewelry and photography, and Wisconsin more furniture

making. (At least that was the impression I got from the exhbits.)

In Boston the movement seemed to proceed mainly through individual

artists and craftsmen to their apprentices, while in Wisconsin the

style was promoted more through schools.



I also took a little time to see the permanent collection, which

includes a neat Chihuly glass bulb and an assemblage called "Game

Fish", which is a swordfish trophy completely covered in found objects:

toothbrushes, lighters, dice, coins, beads, bowling trophy figures,

pieces from children's games, yo-yos, combs, paintbrushes and

indescribably many other items. Game Fish was on posters in all the

Metro stations when I was in Washington last summer, and I was glad

to see it "live".



>From there I had to hustle to get a bite to eat and make it to my

meetings. Not much else of interest to report on that trip, except

that I noticed an odd little house at 1115 NW 16th street, next to

the American Association of University Women headquarters. It's two

stories high, but only a door and a window wide. It looked like it

had orginally been sandwiched between two buildings, but one has

been torn down, which emphasizes its narrowness.



My next trip, to Chicago, will take a bit of space to describe,

so I'll break here and finish up with some more excerpts from

wedding announcements.



"The couple met at a rugby party, and Scott later proposed to Candice

on the anniversary of Elvis' death."



"The couple met in a Montana bar after a friend told Drew of Tiffany's

interest in him, and he responded by presenting her with a turkey

feather from a turkey dinner he'd attended that night. Just a week

later, a drunken minister in the bar where Tiffany worked coaxed

Drew into proposing. The couple describe themselves as 'two perfect

gears grinding down life's road.'"



"Susie, who makes fairy hats, writes that the wedding had an unorthodox

motif. 'We had a fairy-tale wedding. Every single person wore fairy

hats.' When the minister asked for rings, the best man, clad in a

grape-vine hat, 'took a jack-knife out of his pocket and, reaching up

to his hat, cut off an acorn, which he had hidden a ring in, then

handed it to the minister,' Susie writes. The bride's ring, she

continues, was presented 'in a small box of ferns.'" [Couple pictured

both smoking cigars.]