Washington National Cathedral is about halfway through repairs to the damage from the 2011 earthquake. You can see before and after photos on their website (and, if you wish, make a donation toward the project).
Still Scaffolding!
Tag: Cathedral
The Shortest Day
To read aloud each year on this day. Wishing a joyful season to you and to all your dear ones. Thank you, Susan Cooper.
So the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow‐white world Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with evergreen; They burned beseeching fires all night long To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them Echoing behind us ‐ listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight, This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land: They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends, And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now, This year, and every year.
Welcome Yule!
—Susan Cooper
Cards!
Because there won’t be any in-person holiday bazaar for my cards this year, my website is updated (thank you Devin!) to do everything online. Please check it out, along with some new cards. I hope you like it. (Below, some discount codes.)
If you decide to order as many as 5 or 10, you may use the code 5FOR20 or 10FOR40 for a discount. If you are nearby and prefer a safely socially-distant pickup, use code PICKUP for no shipping, and contact me to make arrangements.
Monthly Paintings: Cathedral Calendar 2020
These are the paintings featured, one for each month, in my Washington National Cathedral calendar for 2020. (Click twice to enlarge.)
Melissa
Donna
A Calendar for 2020: Cathedral
Here is my new calendar for 2020, each month featuring one of a series of paintings at Washington National Cathedral and its gardens. The calendar is 8-1/2″ x 11″ and printed on sturdy satin stock, substantial enough that the images can be saved as prints. (Soon I will post the paintings for each month, so that you can see them all, unless you prefer to be surprised.)
A single calendar is $23; a set of two is $42; plus shipping. Shipping is Priority Mail, domestic US. If you are in my area, you can obtain a calendar from me directly without shipping cost—just let me know.
I’m sorry that international shipping costs make the calendars too expensive to ship overseas.
They will also be available at the Washington Waldorf School Holiday Bazaar on November 23rd, along with note cards featuring the Cathedral paintings and my other cards as well.
Single calendar:
Set of 2 calendars:
Artists of Woodley Park
Two of the paintings in my Washington National Cathedral series will be on exhibit in the Artists of Woodley Park show opening October 17, 2019. I’m looking forward to seeing work of the more than 20 Woodley Park artists included, and I hope some of you might make your way there this fall.
Stanford in Washington Gallery
2655 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20008
Notre Dame d’Evreux, with Robot
Yes, that is indeed a robot beside Nôtre Dame d’Evreux and the old Gallo-Roman wall: it’s one of several imaginatively created from found and recycled materials and installed in the park. Juxtaposition of the old and the new is pretty typical of life here, but it doesn’t usually include robots.
Christy
Winter Solstice
On this shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, I post a light-in-darkness painting (one of a series currently in progress based on Washington National Cathedral) and a poem by Patrick Kavanaugh. In celebration of the solstice, look for shooting stars tonight and tomorrow in the constellation Ursa Minor.
Last year, the solstice fell, for the first time since 1638, on the day of a lunar eclipse. For a sketch in honor of this event, please see Winter Solstice/Lunar Eclipse.
A Star
Beauty was that
Far vanished flame,
Call it a star
Wanting better name.
And gaze and gaze
Vaguely until
Nothing is left
Save a grey ghost-hill.
Here wait I
On the world’s rim
Stretching out hands
To Seraphim.
—Patrick Kavanaugh
Fish
The pond in the Bishop’s Garden, from a series of paintings at Washington National Cathedral. And a poem.
AA
The Name of a Fish
.
If winter is a house then summer is a window
in the bedroom of that house. Sorrow is a river
behind the house and happiness is the name
of a fish who swims downstream. The unborn child who plays in the fragrant garden is named Mavis: her red hair is made of future and her sleek feet
are wet with dreams. The cat who naps in the bedroom has his paws in the sun of summer and his tail in the moonlight of change. You and I
spend years walking up and down the dusty stairs of the house. Sometimes we stand in the bedroom and the cat walks towards us like a message.
Sometimes we pick dandelions from the garden and watch the white heads blow open in our hands. We are learning to fish in the river
of sorrow; we are undressing for a swim.
— Faith Shearin