'Light of the Silvery Moon' dims at the National Gallery of Art

Warren De La Rue, Full Moon, 1858-1859, stereoscopic glass transparency, printed 1862, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, National Gallery of Art

If you missed the moon show at the National Gallery of Art, you may see some of the photographs here and more of them at the National Gallery's website.

Last year marked the Golden Anniversary of the first moon landing by humans which the National Gallery commemorated with a display titled By the Light of the Silvery Moon: A Century of Lunar Phonographs showcasing 50 historic moon shots spanning 100 years.

Lewis M. Rutherfurd, Photographie de la lune a son 1er Quartier, March 6, 1865, albumen print, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons' Permanent Fund, National Gallery of Art

In a mostly chronological arrangement, the exhibition began with a stenographic print made of the moon in 1858 and continued on with pictures from the 1960s Space Age. Pictures made by the first lunar astronauts and notable visuals from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration hung on the walls and lay in display cases.  They are part of the National Gallery's vast photography collection of more than 16,000 works. 

Charles Le Morvan, Carte photographique de la lune, planche XVII.A (Photographic Chart of the Moon, plate XVII.A), August 27, 1902, photogravure, printed 1914, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Earthrise across Mare Smythii, July 16-24, 1969, chromogenic print, gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, National Gallery of Art

A photograph in the exhibition by Warren De La Rue (1815-1889) of Great Britain opened the show.  He began his moon picture-taking in 1852 and is credited with making the first stereoscopic moon prints (1858).

American lawyer Lewis M. Rutherfurd took a moon shot in its first quarter in 1865. His moon passion led to him to technological advancements and clear lunar pictures.  (Mr. Rutherfurd built an observatory at his Manhattan residence.) 

The French entered the picture with the 1862 publication of Our Satellite by Dr. A. Le Vengeur d'Onrsan (1800-1899), the first of a planned series to define the Moon's mapping ("selenography"; try that on a logophile), but, alas, the good doctor was accused of stealing Mr. De La Rue's pictures and Our Satellite never saw completion.

Gallery curators Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner spent hours studying and researching photos from the collection before making final choices for this presentation of American achievement.

Mugs, puzzles, jewelry, stationery, photographs, and more moon merchandise are still available in the Gallery shops.

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Renwick's Michael Sherrill Retrospective ends Sunday

At the entrance to the Michael Sherrill Retrospective at the Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In his North Carolina studio close to Asheville at a place called "Bat Cave" (that is the real name), naturalist/artist Michael Sherrill brings it all home, his love for the outdoors, his creativity, and his desire to make the world understand the loss of Earth's gifts and those we take for granted.

Using glass, clay, and metal, Mr. Sherrill designs and sculpts nature's bounty and more for wall hangings and display. The Renwick Gallery has 73 of them up for this last weekend.

Michael Sherrill, Aqua Bottles, 1995/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, Queen of Hearts, c. 1990, Racine Art Museum, left, and Head and Shoulders, c. 1990, collection of the artist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill Retrospective spans his artistic evolution over more than 40 years, beginning with his teapots and ending with colorful metal animals mixed inside and around real and fictional plants.

Michael Sherrill Retrospective, Smithsonian Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, Bumbleberry, 1999, Mint Museum. The wall label says this work was inspired by the non-native kiwi plant which grew outside the artist's studio and seemed to always  grasp for light and support.  I don't know about you, but this sure suggests a snake to me.  Perhaps I mixed up the proper plant credit? Update:  I did not mix them up!/Photo by Patricia Leslie


Mr. Sherrill's beginnings were not unlike those of many artists, but few have six children as this artist does. At his Washington opening, he said: “I had to balance doing my best work and surviving economically.”

The 2008 recession took its toll on some of his potter friends who were unable to continue their art, "growing bored" with struggles. To the persistent go the laurels, and Mr. Sherrill, who started as an abstract potter, kept up his craft which became harmonious sculptures of nature.

Michael Sherrill at the opening of his retrospective at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019
/Photo by Patricia Leslie


He grew up listening to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan who, he thinks, invited listeners to join in their music, and he wants viewers to do the same with his art:  participate.

Michael Sherrill at the opening of his retrospective at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, How Plants Travel, 2003, collection of Marsha Madorsky.  Mr. Sherrill created this about the time his works shifted from table tops to wall hangings.  Here, the flowers gradually diminish in size as the eye moves up the curvature/Photo by Patricia Leslie

For models (including snakes which are easily found around his mountain studio; he kept one in his high school locker, he said) he uses wires and sometimes sketches designs in advance but not always. His sculptures are colored metal, many with beautiful, small flowers, their shapes and sizes reminiscent of plants and nature's limbs which float on seabeds.

Michael Sherrill, What the Eye Sees, 2003, collection of Ann and Tom Cousins. The open areas, according to the label copy, are intended to invite viewer interpretation/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, Brightly Hidden, 2010, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA.  This was made by Mr. Sherrill when he served as an artist-in-residence at the Tacoma Museum of Glass.  It is designed to show the snake in the Garden of Eden, good v. bad, beauty v. danger/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the Michael Sherrill Retrospective, Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A photo of some of Michael Sherrill's "mudtools" on display and available for sale at his website/Photo by Patricia Leslie

To fashion his works, Mr. Sherrill, mostly self-taught, needs specialized tools which he makes himself and sells on his website. (They are pictured on a wall at the Renwick.)  

On a recent trip to Japan, he found reproductions of them for sale in two shops.

Organizer of the show was the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., which has named Mr. Sherrill , "Artist of the Year."



What: Michael Sherrill Retrospective and see Reforestation of the Imagination by Ginny Ruffner in an adjacent gallery. 

When: Now through January 5, 2020. The Renwick is open from 10 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. every day.

Where: The Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006, at the White House 17th Street block, adjacent to Blair House.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Farragut North or Farragut West

For more information: (202) 633-7970 (recorded) or (202) 633-2850

patricialesli@gmail.com 

Last days for Ginny Ruffner's art at Renwick Gallery

Ginny Ruffner talks to a reporter at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019. On the wall are devices guests may use to see Ms. Ruffner's flowers, plants, and nature's elements change and blossom/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A few days remain to see the show of Ginny Ruffner's works which will end Sunday at the Renwick Gallery.

Titled Reforestation of the Imagination made in collaboration with media artist Grant Kirkpatrick, the art is
as intricate and delightful as Ms. Ruffner, incorporating nature and all its beauty with sinewy limbs and colors to refresh and inspire.

Ginny Ruffner's art at the Renwick Gallery. The artist said these works have fiber glass bases with resin and sand, built over plywood skeletons. Two apprentices help her/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sometimes known as a glass artist, Ms. Ruffner utilizes technology ("augmented reality") to make viewing experiences more rewarding. With a handheld device (available at the Renwick) or a smartphone held atop her sculptures, a viewer may see them blossom and grow, becoming elements of beauty and marvel. 

At the Renwick Gallery with Ginny Ruffner's display which reminds me of a spinning ballerina and her dancing shoes/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Ginny Ruffner, Grape Flower/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Ginny Ruffner, Blue Flower with Snakes. The white streaks at the bottom are reflections in the glass cover/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

Ginny Ruffner at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019. Her pink cane is an assist after she almost died from effects of a 1991 automobile crash/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Ginny Ruffner at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 At the opening of the  exhibition at the Renwick, Ms. Ruffner was present to tell a little of her background: She was born in Atlanta (1952) but grew up near Rock Hill, S.C. and attended the University of Georgia, earning a B.F.A. and a M.F.A. in drawing and painting (cum laude and summa cum laude).

She's now based in Seattle, the home of a 30-foot tall kinetic water she sculptured.  Another of her works is found at Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park, one of 55 worldwide museums and galleries which boast Ms. Ruffner's works in their collections. 

The interactive Renwick show is another one to interest the whole family and watch colors and pieces change before you. (The Renwick cautions that children under age 12 must be accompanied by an adult.)

What: Reforestation of the Imagination by Ginny Ruffer with Grant Kirkpatrick. Michael Sherrill's Retrospective is in the adjacent galleries.
 
When: Now through January 5, 2020. The Renwick is open from 10 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. every day.

Where: The Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006, at the White House 17th Street block, adjacent to Blair House.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Farragut North or Farragut West

For more information: (202) 633-7970 (recorded) or (202) 633-2850

patricialesli@gmail.com

Another 'Eureka!' show at Mosaic

It may be the D.C. debut, but it won't be the last of this show in D.C.


How does Ari Roth, Mosaic Theater's artistic director, land these riveting, modern tales before anyone else? 


Eureka Day is the progressives gone overboard.  A mirror from the left looking at (laughing at) themselves. (Conservatives will adore it!) 

It's hilarious. It's provoking, and it's another big hit at Mosaic.

Two men and three women make up the  "executive committee" of a liberal private high school in Berkeley, California (where else?). 

Never mind that public schools need all the attention and attendance they can get from wealthy liberal parents. (Think, the Clintons, the Obamas, and Sidwell Friends School; thank you very much, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter who sent their daughter, Amy, to public school when they occupied the White House.)

After all, these are our children for whom we should do the very best and who cares about anyone else? Ours simply must attend Eureka Day! Enough liberal thinking!

A new parent (Erica Chamblee) is the outlier at Eureka Day School who sits on the outside of the group watching the circus, waiting, an audience of one, representing us, the viewers.

Two others in the group, Eli (Elan Zafir) and Meiko (Regina Aquino) are having an affair, of course.  Where would any contemporary sensible production be without this de rigueur practice?

Dancing Don (Sam Lunay) moves with the best of them, trying to keep everything and everybody in line, to reach "consensus" and maybe, everything won't be so bad.

Suzanne (Lise Bruneau) is the antagonist with a correction for everything:  Please, they are not Egyptians; they are enslaved persons.  

Please! Here we use only gender-neutral or non-binary pronouns. Get with the program! 

Tsk! Tsk! You really do need an education, don't you, to use those for recycled plates? They are not the right kind.

The script includes discussion about vaccinations.  To vaccinate or not?  Close the school?

The funniest part comes at the end of Act 1 when the committee leads a virtual meeting that parents may attend on Facebook. And do they ever. (Dylan Uremovich and Theodore J. H. Hulsker are in charge of projections.) Sling to the right of us, to the left, take that, and on and on producing regales of audience laughter, so much that who cares what the stage taskmasters are saying?


Eureka has its serious moments, too, but, thankfully, not as many as the humorous ones. (I just came to laugh, after all.  Vaccinations?  What vaccinations?  This is billed as a comedy.)

The music between scenes is divine.  The first act ends too quickly and the second finishes much too fast for it all to be over, meaning I wanted it to go on and on. 

The acting is superb, and the mannerisms drawn by Director Serge Seiden with such swooping and bending and looks, like those loved by audiences the world over.

Mar Cox and Thomas Nagata, the assistant stage manager, are also in the cast.   

Creative team members include Andrew Cohen, set; Brittany Shemuga, lights;Brandee Mathies, costumes; David Lamont Wilson, sound; Deborah C. Thomas, properties; Shirley Serotsky, dramaturg; Claudia Rosales Waters, intimacy consultant; and Aril E. Carter, stage manager

What:  Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector

When: Now through January 5, 2020, Monday, Dec. 30, and Thursday- Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday matinees, 3 p.m.

Where: Mosaic Theater Company, Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20002

Getting there: Riding public transportation from Union Station on the streetcar is easy and free, if you can find the streetcar behind Union Station where signage to the streetcar is poor. Valet and parking options are available. 

Tickets start at $20. (Use discount code "2020" to get 20% off.)

Language: Adult

Duration: About two hours with one 15-minute intermission. 

Post-show discussions:  Dec. 30, Jan. 2, and Jan. 4.

Open-captioned performances: Jan. 3 and Jan. 4 (Call for time on Jan. 4.) 

For more information: Please call the box office (202-399-7993, ext. 2) or email boxoffice@atlasarts.org.

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boxoffice@atlasarts.org

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