Epiphany Ramblings

When I saw that the National Cathedral was having an Epiphany service at noon, I decided to rearrange my plans and go to the National Gallery after the service.  I had planned to see the Vermeer exhibit.

In retrospect, I could have walked back to my seminary apartment after worship and been just as happy.  The worship service was perfect for the day.  When I knelt to take communion at this rail, I looked at this vast carving behind the altar, with stained glass windows above it, and I felt my spirit soar, just as the architects and artists intended:

Then I walked to the Metro stop to go downtown.  I got a bit turned around, but happily, I had my phone and Google Maps was able to direct me.  I went straight to the National Gallery, where I expected to walk right in to the Vermeer exhibit; after all, it's been here since October.

I got there at 2, and the woman staffing the Information desk told me there was a 4 hour wait.  I can't think of anything I'm willing to wait in a 4 hour line to see, so I went to the other exhibit I wanted to see:  Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South.  Some of the artists are still alive, and they all lived and created in the 20th century.  Many of them lived in Gee's Bend, but the scope is much larger.

I had seen a larger exhibit of Gee's Bend quilts back in 2004 or so.  I have mixed feelings about them as works of art.  I could make the claim that some of them, like the above, are both art and bed covering.  But some of them, like this one, are not:

The big panels of fabric don't seem like an artist intent on breaking the rules--it speaks to me of someone who wishes she didn't have to do this.  There's no quilting on the piece.  I'm not sure what holds the layers together.  The stitches on the edges are loose, which again, says to me that the creator was not delighting in the process.  It's very unlike this quilt which has intricate stitches and quilting done by hand:

It wasn't all quilts.  There were interesting works of assembled pieces that some of us wouldn't even see as art materials:

There was painted and welded metals:

I was most captivated by the works of Thornton Dial, who assembled all sorts of materials into works of art.  Here's one that uses a frame of mattress coils (what mattresses used to contain as their core) as the base of the art:

This one of Thornton Dial's, called "Refugees Trying to Get to the United States" has a message, with its pink, yellow, and brown headlike objects in the center, but I'm not exactly sure what it is.

After I took in the special exhibit, I wandered through the other gallery that had selections from the Gallery's collection of works of art from the first 5 decades of the 20th century, mostly paintings.  It was strange to look at the works of Picasso and Miro after seeing the works in the special exhibit.  They seemed flat and dull, even though I understand how they broke new ground, making it possible for works like those in the special exhibit.  I also understand that they had different resources and different objectives and lived in very different life circumstances at a very different place and time.

I returned home a bit worn out, which makes sense--my phone tells me that I walked almost 7 miles yesterday.  For much of the afternoon, even if I wasn't walking, I was on my feet.  After my video call with my spouse, I read for a bit and went to bed extra early, even for me.  I was asleep before 8, and I slept until just after 5, and it was a sound sleep.

In an hour, I'll leave to go see my 16 year old nephew at a swim meet.  It will be a different day, but I'm looking forward to it.