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Gordy
and Madelane's Day 5
— Part 1 8:35am Back to the Navy Art Gallery two days ago. Shooting the Normandy series was tricky because of the glare. I shot them at an angle and hope I can straighten everything out in Photoshop. Madelane had Karen bring out Bridge of Destroyer. The figure in the full face mask was actually modeled by our dad. Karen was excited to find this out. The like to have any stories about their paintings and would add this one to the existing information on it. Bridge of Destroyer was a charcoal and pastel drawing and it needed to be reshot. Karen also brought out Submarine Tender in Gale, Tasman Sea to be redone. This was a good time to break for lunch at the Navy Yard McDonald's. Two cheeseburgers, fries, and a coke. I'm just an old fashioned kind of guy. After lunch I finished shooting the last two pieces.
[The Submarine Tender drawing picture didn't come out. It got double exposed. Oh, well. I guess I'll have to go back and reshoot it. Someday. Zoe said to put it up anyway. It does look neat. It's a great drawing.
The Navy Art Gallery does have film on it (it has a strange color balance), which I will have to use for now.] While waiting for the lamp to cool down, Karin gave us a tour of some of their collection highlights. Some very nice pieces. Then we looked at some of the works of the other WWII Navy combat artists. Their pieces were very different from Griff's paintings. Griff's pieces were generally much larger and done in oil. Oil is not a medium conducive to field work. It takes a lot of preparation and equipment. Griff did all his final painting back at his studio in NYC. The other artists' works were in watercolor, which takes a lot less preparation. They were done in a much quicker and more spontaneous fashion. As Karin pulled painting after painting out of the storage drawers to show us, I was overwhelmed (a condition that would occur often on this trip.) I wish I could shoot all the art of the Navy WWII combat artists. It all deserves to be seen. Very, very powerful stuff. Karen also threw in anecdotes about the artists and the stories behind some of the paintings. They all deserve recognition that I don't think they ever got. If I had the resources I would like to shoot all the WWII combat art. I think I already said that. It's worth saying again. Very moving images of war, death , and destruction.
I think the last time I traveled by train must have been 1948. I must have been 4 years old. We had been living at Hamilton Field near Vallejo, California, and my dad was transferred to Wichita Falls, Texas. He was in the Air Force. Wichita Falls was my mom's least favorite place. Hot and dusty in the Texas panhandle. But that is another story. I remember the train rattling along and looking out the window as the world went by. It didn't seem like a very fancy train. Trains are an anomaly for a West Coast boy. It seems much more common and available on the East Coast. I haven't been in too many train stations. The King Street Station in Seattle is kind of shabby. It was originally built in 1906 and has be en remodeled into blandness, with all the original ceilings and details covered up. I haven't been there in years and then it was only to pick up and drop off. The train station in Los Angeles is wonderful. I've dropped off and picked up there. I think it was the last major train station built. It was completed in 1939. It has a definite California Spanish architecture kind of feel about it.
Quite a contrast to the station that I'm sitting in now. Washington, DC's, Union Station is definitely in the imperial, monumental, power mold. But so is much of the architecture in DC. Big. Important. Serious. Lots of classical Roman and Greek references. Union Station is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Seattle's King Street Station. Union Station is full of people and shops. Lots of activity. But back to the Navy Art Gallery. As we were packing up getting ready to leave, Gale received a package. It turned out to be new combat art. There was one that was definitely Afghanistan. The others could have been Afghanistan, Iraq, or Duluth. That was the problem – no combat. They were watercolors and beautifully executed, but such a contrast to the WWII combat art. There was not an effort to hide the death and tragedy in the WWII paintings. It was something that the artists tried to capture and communicate. They tried to show the horror of war and, according to Karin's stories, the horror and death was more than some of the artists could handle. They were really anti-war paintings. They didn't glorify war. The new paintings are so indicative of our current attitudes toward war. War has been sanitized. No one dies or gets hurt. Well, actually they do, but we don't talk about such things in polite company. It might be upsetting or unpatriotic. We must focus on shopping and the reality shows. No sacrifice asked. No sacrifice required. Oh! Those caskets draped in American flags. Nothing here! Move on! Those pictures of dead Iraqi children on Aljazeera? Arab propaganda. Nothing to worry about. End editorial comment. We
finally said our goodbyes to Gale, Karin, and Crystal. They were so helpful
and friendly. They obviously cared about their charges and wanted others
to know what treasures they had. We said goodbye to new friends. 11:00am 11:20am Back to the Navy Art Gallery. We decided to walk back to the Metro subway. About a mile. It was hot. We could see the contrast of old and new buildings as we walked past the Navy Yard. Some dated back to the Civil War. We took the subway through DC into the Virginia suburbs and Seth's apartment.
While Seth was gone, his roommate, Todd (I think that's his name. Apologies if I didn't get it right.), was there. We hardly saw him during our stay. When he was there it was fun talking with him. Very friendly. Madelane and I walked down to a little strip mall for some nice Italian food. They sure don't have the beer selection I'm used to in Seattle and Whidbey Island. Usually they have Sam Adams but the rest is drek. Seth left his computer on for me so I was able to email Zoe and, after laboriously deleting 300-400 spam messages, found an email from Zoe. Oh, yes. I don't think I mentioned that Seth and Todd have cell phones but no land line, so I wasn't able to talk to Zoe. Surfed some news sites and political blogs to see if the world had come to an end. It hadn't. Yet. Packed up my lights and tripod to mail back home. The next morning — that would be Friday, yesterday, we stopped by the post office to mail my gear and then caught a bus to the metro rail for a day in DC. We had to go back to the Navy Yard first to pick up a forgotten notebook that had all my phone numbers and schedules — my brain. With that done, we took the subway back to DC and got out at the Botanic Gardens.
Madelane has a background in horticulture and was pretty excited about some of the plants. I was more interested in the architecture of the steel and glass structure. Very nice.
It seems that any building you go into has a bag inspection, often with x-rays. I hope I don't have a bunch of fogged film. [It all seemed to come through fine.]
From the Botanic Garden it was a walk up to the backside of the Capitol Building. It is impressive.
We walked towards the Washington Monument. I went to the Air and Space Museum and Madelane went on the American History Museum. Another X-ray bag check. The Air and Space Museum is impressive and there are some very unique aircraft there, but those of you that are in the Northwest shouldn't feel too terribly inadequate with Seattle's Museum of Flight. There was the Spirit of St. Louis, and Chuck Yeager's Bell X1 — the first supersonic aircraft, and other historic aircraft like the Voyager, the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world, and the Gossamer Condor – the first human powered plane to fly across the English Channel.
They had a huge exhibit with the 1903 Wright Flyer, the world's first airplane. This was the 100th year of manned flight. It was in the Wright exhibit that they had my favorite artifact – a Wright Brother's bicycle. It was really cool. The chain was adjusted a little loose, though. There are only five known examples of Wright Brothers bicycles. Very nice.
From there I kept heading down the Mall, past the Smithsonian Castle to meet back up with Madelane at the north side of that great example of Penis Architecture – the Washington Monument.
Unfortunately they have a barrier up so you can't get very close to it. Bummer. There are no shortage of amazing structures in DC. Really amazing structures. But the Washington Monument was the one that struck me the most. It kept changing with light and distance. It was always different. Amazing that they can stack stone that high. Beautiful. We continued south towards the Lincoln Memorial. It was a hot day. The weather forecasters promised us thunder storms but there was no sign of them.
The new WWII monument is almost completed at the Washington Monument end of the reflecting pool. By this time I'm getting pretty hot and tired. I'm hitting each drinking fountain I find. I'm turning red in the face with sunburn. Sat down on a bench halfway down the reflecting pool to rest. It was a nice tree lined path that afforded some shade. We finally made our way down to the end of the reflecting pool near the Lincoln Memorial. There was an ice cream vendor who only had 3 Dove Bars left. We took two and sat in the shade looking up the reflecting pool, the Lincoln Memorial at our back, and thoroughly enjoyed a good cold ice cream bar. Here are our Mall travels so far: << Day 4 | Day 5 — Part 2 >>
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