The Museums after the Cherry Blossoms

When I thought about moving to DC, I assumed I would go to the museums every day.  Back then, I thought the seminary was within walking distance of the Mall, and even when I realized it wasn't, I thought the Metro stop was closer.

All of this to say:  I don't go to museums every day, or even as often as I had planned to when I first moved to DC.  I only feel occasional guilt about that.  It takes time to go down to the Mall to see the big museums.  On Monday, I realized it takes money too:  my round trip Metro fare was somewhere between 6 and 8.  It's money that's already loaded on my Metro card, so I don't feel it viscerally.  

But because it takes time and money, I want to make the most of trips downtown.  So I knew that after the cherry blossoms, I wanted to go to a museum or two.  I chose the Renwick because I've been doing a lot of work with fabric, and I knew that my best chance of seeing a quilt would be there.  

But it was not to be--lots of fiber art, like this one strung from the grand hall ceiling with lights that changed to mimic the sunset, and the whole process of the changing of the light took the same amount of time as an average sunset.

It wasn't what I had in mind, but there was much to love in this museum.  More than the fiber art, I was drawn to assemblages, like this one, with keepsakes and found objects combined with clay and embellished with glitter and gold leaf:

This one is supposed to be a bracelet composed of trash taken off the beaches washed up from the sea:

Up close:

After spending time in the Renwick, I decided I still had time, so I would go to the American Art Museum.  But I got a bit lost, turning right when I should have turned left.  So I was a bit grumpy and out of sorts when I arrived.  But I still wandered around, taking in the work, letting my grumpiness fade away.  I saw this work by an artist, Thornton Dial, whose works I saw in a different Smithsonian back in January (read more about the artist here):

I didn't see much in the way of quilts, and I didn't expect to.  But I was delighted that this assemblage is still here, where I saw it first, decades ago.  It's James Hampton's, "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly," and you can read more about it here :

I love these works, but I do wonder how artists without a shed or studio do this kind of work.  Where do they store these pieces when it's done?  As always, I wonder what type of art I might do, if time, space, money, and materials didn't matter.

Happily my mediums of choice, words and my fabric and colored markers, don't take much room.  And I can dip in and out, the way I wouldn't be able to do if I worked in clay or resins.  I can do something creative, even if I only have 15 minutes.

These kinds of exhibits do make me think about all that I throw away--the scraps of foil, the trinkets, all the materials that could be art.  I'm glad that I have other options.