I was killing time before my talk for the Washington Conservation Guild on February 7. The old Patent Office serves as the home to two Smithsonian Institution museums, the National Portrait Gallery, and the American Art Museum. The Patent Office … Continue reading
DC’s downtown streetscapes are being resuscitated in scraps and snippets. Whitewashing idealism and urban renewal threatened to wipe clean the historical texture of the scrappy American capital throughout the 20th century. Historic buildings that once didn’t fit model image of America of … Continue reading
Time to chortle like Julia, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is hosting Food: Transforming the American Table 1950–2000, opening November 20, 2012. While the exhibition portion of the website could use a bit more clarity, the show will … Continue reading
Thanks to Ms. S for pointing out Threaded, a fun blog over at Smithsonian Magazine. It’s about Olympic uniforms, Cosmo, wearing wool all summer in the late 19th century, swimsuits, 600 year old bras, war shirts, and LBJ’s custom Haggar’s. … Continue reading
I wrote those words “gridded on my mind” years ago in a short story, the protagonist describing herself as the antagonist’s Eadweard Muybridge, preserving him in her memory, serving as his stop-gap photographer. Eadweard Muybridge. Funny name. The sequences of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 7 photos.
I started photographing phone booths on my travels several years ago. Originally, phone booths were small bits of architecture and design glorifying communication technology. Evenutally, after many years of serving as restrooms and temporary shelters for the homeless, many pay … Continue reading
Click here for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. And then, my family members went on vacation. Like many families, they visited the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. But unlike your average Washington, D.C. tourist, the Coles … Continue reading