‘Last American Indian’ finds challenges in performance art
On a gray October morning, the Lincoln Memorial is teeming with tourists. Many are so intent on jockeying for a good spot to take a photo of the presidential statue, they seem to miss the 6-foot-4 man wearing a feathered headdress.
With a black handprint painted across his unsmiling face, he looks like a Native American caricature: black wool leggings bordered with fringe and a matching loincloth hanging from a belted loop. At times, he holds cardboard signs saying: “My Spirit Animal Is White Guilt” and “This Used to Be Indian Land But Everything Went to Crap.”
This is the fourth time Montclair artist Gregg Deal has brought his performance piece, “The Last American Indian on Earth,” to this well-trod spot. As the 38-year-old sits on the memorial steps and checks his iPhone, an invisible stage has been set. Deal waits for another character to start the action.
Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Feb. 16, 2014)
With a black handprint painted across his unsmiling face, he looks like a Native American caricature: black wool leggings bordered with fringe and a matching loincloth hanging from a belted loop. At times, he holds cardboard signs saying: “My Spirit Animal Is White Guilt” and “This Used to Be Indian Land But Everything Went to Crap.”
This is the fourth time Montclair artist Gregg Deal has brought his performance piece, “The Last American Indian on Earth,” to this well-trod spot. As the 38-year-old sits on the memorial steps and checks his iPhone, an invisible stage has been set. Deal waits for another character to start the action.
Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Feb. 16, 2014)
Faith, Etched in Stone: Sackler's Cosmic Buddha in fine detail
In a room brimming with ancient art, the headless and armless limestone statue is easy to overlook. Nevertheless, Keith Wilson, curator of ancient Chinese art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, suggests visitors linger in front of Vairochana, the Cosmic Buddha, a little longer. “As you can see it’s super complicated and very, very dense,” he says of the intricately carved 6th-century piece on the main floor of Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery (1200 Independence Ave SW; 202-633-1000). “It has never been fully analyzed, though it’s been here at the museum for 90 years.”
That is quickly changing though: In November, the Smithsonian Institution unveiled Smithsonian 3D, in which three-dimensional scans of various objects are now on display online, allowing researchers and the public to examine their fine details.
Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Feb. 16, 2014)
That is quickly changing though: In November, the Smithsonian Institution unveiled Smithsonian 3D, in which three-dimensional scans of various objects are now on display online, allowing researchers and the public to examine their fine details.
Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Feb. 16, 2014)
School Ties: At Sumner Museum, a link to D.C. History
Standing in what used to be a classroom, Kimberly Springle gestures to the dozens of everyday objects surrounding her at the Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives. “That’s what we’re here for,” says the director of the museum, which is dedicated to the District’s
public school past. “To protect that history, to make sure that it’s preserved and memories are not lost.”
Created in 1986, the museum holds items such as yearbooks, newspapers, sports equipment and vinyl records, and is housed in the Charles Sumner School (1201 17th St.
NW, 202-730-0478), formerly an elementary and high school for African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The D.C. school system, which integrated in 1954, has a history that is constantly evolving, Springle says. “We have documentation from the beginning, 1804, and are continuing
to collect,” she says. Here, Springle and resident historian Kenneth Stuckey showcase a few pieces.
Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Jan. 26, 2014)
public school past. “To protect that history, to make sure that it’s preserved and memories are not lost.”
Created in 1986, the museum holds items such as yearbooks, newspapers, sports equipment and vinyl records, and is housed in the Charles Sumner School (1201 17th St.
NW, 202-730-0478), formerly an elementary and high school for African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The D.C. school system, which integrated in 1954, has a history that is constantly evolving, Springle says. “We have documentation from the beginning, 1804, and are continuing
to collect,” she says. Here, Springle and resident historian Kenneth Stuckey showcase a few pieces.
Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Jan. 26, 2014)
Tiny Pieces of Japan: He Travels east Without Leaving Home
As Matthew Davis sits at his kitchen table, a low train whistle sounds in the distance. “Well, of course I live near a railroad,” the 42-year-old says with a chuckle. The passing train might belong to CSX or Amtrak, but the Silver Spring resident is much more interested in trains from farther afield: Japanese model trains.
Although Davis collected American model trains as a child, it wasn’t until later in life — after taking Japanese classes at San Antonio's Trinity University— that his love for Japanese models grew. After visiting Japan in 1993, Davis became enthralled with its transportation system, particularly the high-speed bullet trains, called shinkansen. Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Jan. 19, 2014) Free-Form Furniture: Artisan lets his 'imagination run wild'
It began with African mahogany. While working as an assistant technical director at the Shakespeare Theatre’s scenery shop in 1998, Art Drauglis came across a piece of the wood left over in storage. “It was basically abandoned property,” he recalls. “Nobody had any idea where it came from so I said, ‘I’m gonna make a table out of this.’”
While the table didn’t fare too well — it warped on the D.C. resident’s porch — it was the predecessor of many creations Drauglis would make in coming years. In 2001, he decided to pursue his furniture-making hobby full-time and launched a Web site to sell his creations online. Soon after, he found himself drifting away from the traditional styles he had started with toward “the arty pieces and messing around with giant slabs of wood, letting my imagination run wild on things,” says Drauglis, now 43. Today his creations, made mostly of salvaged wood, are anything but traditional. Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Dec. 1, 2013) |
Family Business: Virginia ranch holds marriott memories
Marriott is a well-known surname today, but there’s a lesser known piece of the prominent family’s history an hour and half from the District. Fairfield Farm at Marriott Ranch, a 4,200-acre working cattle farm, was a retreat from the city for John Willard Marriott, the late founder of the worldwide hotel chain.
Although he and his wife, Alice, lived in the District’s Wesley Heights, Marriott bought the Hume, Va., property, in 1951 and stayed in the manor house. “This is where he probably came to get away from it all, to clear his mind and think,” says Marriott Ranch general manager Lanier Cate. “He spent a lot of time out here.” Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Dec. 8, 2013) Sip on this: How Capital Kombucha brews its teas
Arriving at George Washington University’s business school one day two years ago, Andreas Schneider was carrying more than his textbooks. He was doling out samples of an amber-colored fermented tea he had brewed in his U Street apartment. “I had no idea what kombucha was,” recalls John Lee, Schneider’s former MBA classmate. “So when I first tried it, it was, ‘Is this what it's supposed to taste like?’ ” The drink was bitter and, well, Schneider admits, “unpleasant.”
But those sour times are a distant memory. In spring 2012, Schneider, Lee and fellow recent GWU graduate Dan Lieberman incorporated Capital Kombucha, the District’s first kombucha brewery. Read more (Washington Post Magazine, Nov. 24, 2013) |
