A day on the Mall at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival learning about Basque music, dance, textiles, pottery, fishing, salt, and cheese.
Category: Sketchbook
Solstice Moon
Don your leafy crown and pagan garb and prepare to dance ’round the bonfire, for (in the Northern Hemisphere) ’tis the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, a time to celebrate our warming sun, our greening earth, and fertility in all its forms. And this shortest night is graced by a full moon, an unusual conjunction of events. Reason enough for dancing!
Don 2006
Mothers Day/Mr. Darcy’s Birthday
A double celebration: today the tribute to mothers was shared with the dog’s 11th birthday. And where our family’s dog is concerned, this is of equal significance. Celebrated with a trip to the Palisades Farmers Market, brunch on the porch, and a visit to the last day of “Wonder” at the Renwick, a stunning exhibit well worth the long lines. (Mr. Darcy did not attend.)
Celeste
Uncle Mike
A Bluebell Sunday
Because the weather has been unusually cool, spring is moving in slowly, so it’s not too late to stroll along the gorgeous bluebell walk at Riverbend Park. When we hiked the path Sunday, there were quite a few still in rose-colored-bud stage, and a dozen other less showy wildflowers opening up as well.
Alex
Winter Snowdrops
The first of March is still winter—and yet here are the faithful snowdrops emerging beside the front walk, a perpetually hopeful sign of growing things to come. I had to run and fetch the sketchbook.
Polly
Power, Pathos, and Poetry
One of several events connected to the stunning collection of ancient Greek bronzes on exhibit through March 20th (three more weeks to get yourself down there!) at the National Gallery of Art.
A New Library
Our local well-loved and popular but shabby post-WWII Cleveland Park Library is destined for replacement, and the project has brought out library-lovers in force, many making specific requests for new features (Quiet study spaces!–Better handicapped access!–Net zero energy use!) and specific requests to keep what is currently beloved (Light, warmth, and coziness!–Wooden shelving and furniture!–Children’s room memorabilia!–Our terrific staff!).
Above all, neighbors overwhelmingly requested A Building Not Like Tenley! (a nearby brand-new library branch modern in style but also regarded as cold, dark, noisy, hard, and uncomfortable). Instead residents hoped for a warm friendly building, whether modern or traditional, compatible with the neighborhood’s 100-year-old farmhouse-style houses and the nearby art-deco theater and apartments. This is looking to be unlikely.
You can see the design concept on the Cleveland Park Library website, where it is drawn considerably better than in my cartoon above.
Dad
February Festivals
A happy sequence of events, all signifying that we are now halfway through the winter: The First of February, Groundhog Day/Candlemas, and Setsubun. This means that, although there are still heaps of snow along every sidewalk and intersection, we can celebrate with crêpes, candle-making, watching one of our favorite movies, eating sushi rolls, and tossing beans into the garden. Happy February! Wishing you much joy and no demons!
Anna
Corinne
Snow, Blessed Snow
A sketch from the studio window, and a poem I post in thanks for this brief interlude of beauty and silence.
Snow,
blessed snow,
comes out of the sky
like bleached flies.
The ground is no longer naked.
The ground has on its clothes.
The trees poke out of sheets
and each branch wears the sock of God.
There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
I bite it.
Someone once said:
Don’t bite till you know
if it’s bread or stone.
What I bite is all bread,
rising, yeasty as a cloud.
There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
Today God gives milk
and I have the pail.
—Anne Sexton
Salome
Celebration
So fittingly on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we listened to many touching, fascinating, and funny reminiscences during the moving celebration of Al Bronstein. This is a man who infused all his life’s undertakings—from social justice to education to family life to fabulous cooking—with his fierce determination, courage, brilliance, humor and kindness. Thank you, Al.
Matilda
Susan