Party Hats and Cake!

On this beautiful, sunny, and unseasonably mild winter day, Diggory and I drove downtown to help the Renwick Gallery celebrate its 40th birthday. Happy Birthday Renwick! The Renwick Gallery is located on Pennsylvania Avenue, at the corner of 17th Street NW, just one block west of the White House. It's pretty easy to find metered street parking on the weekends. We found an awesome spot on G Street, just a quick block and a half stroll to the gallery. (Just be prepared to shell out $4 in quarters for two hours, though most of the meters take credit cards now too.)

Image above: Postcard design contest winner Becca Kallem's beautiful watercolor of the Renwick's stunning facade.

When my husband Nathan and I first moved to the DC area, I worked out of the Renwick when the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was organizing the exhibition Grant Wood's Studio: Birthplace of American Gothic. The Renwick, as a result, will always hold a special place in my heart. So when my good friend, Katie Crooks, a public programs coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, of which the Renwick is a part, invited us to a party, we enthusiastically accepted! Plus, there was music, a hands on "touch table," a party hat craft table, and, of course, CAKE! How could we refuse?!

As you can see in the image above, there are a good number of stairs leading up to the front entrance of the gallery. You can carry your stroller up the stairs...I've done it with two people...but it's definitely safer and easier to take the handicap entrance. The ramp is located on the west side of the building, parallel to 17th Street. You'll enter on the basement level, get the once over by security, and take the elevator up to the first floor. There you can grab a brochure and view the current temporary exhibition. Now through May 6, 2012, you can see Something of Splendor: Decorative Arts from the White House. The exhibition features 95 objects from the collections of the White House - objects as varied as a gilded armchair from 1875 to a service plate from Reagan's 1982 presidential china - arranged roughly chronologically, giving the visitor a better sense of how the collection was built and how the objects were used throughout the history of the iconic home. The exhibition ends with a short film, At Home in the White House, and then, not surprisingly, you find yourself in the gift shop. The gift shop is small (but awesome!) and is a great place to find unique gifts. Just inside the gift shop, you'll find water fountains and a large restroom, the only one in the whole building with a changing table.

Here is Diggory in his party hat!

My favorite spot in the Renwick, by far, is the second-floor Grand Salon, with it's mid-1800's decor and it's dense arrangement of paintings hung salon-style. Conveniently, there are four maps in front of each of the four walls which identify the artist, title, and date of each painting. You'll find your old, beloved favorites and maybe a new favorite or two. There are also a handful of printed gallery guides available to provide more information on the artists.

Diggory with my dear friend Katie!

The second floor also displays works from the museum's permanent collection of contemporary craft and decorative arts, as well as a selection of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century paintings along the walls of the grand stair hall and in the Octagon Room.

The contemporary craft and decorative arts never ceases to amaze me. The workmanship, creativity, and mastery of materials is truly something awe inspiring. The Game Fish and Ghost Clock are stand-by favorites for most visitors, but I find myself drawn to the more utilitarian pieces, such as Albert Paley's Portal Gates, in the image below on the left. But maybe I'm a bit biased because of Paley's Iowa connections. He designed the work Transformation for Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, my home town. He also has pieces in Perry, Iowa, at National Harbor in Alexandria, Virginia (my current town), and at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

With our exploration of the museum complete, we said our goodbyes, packed up our party hat, and headed back to the car, taking just a few moments to stroll past the White House to soak up some sunshine. All in all, we had a fabulous afternoon, and the cake didn't hurt one little bit.

Up, Up and Away!

I had a major geekiest-of-the-nerds, light-bulb moment this morning. I've always wanted to check out the ruins of the Abingdon Plantation, conveniently located between Parking Garage A and Parking Garage B/C at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. So, we went. I mentioned I'm a total nerd, right? Besides, I wanted to go to the mall to use up some Christmas gift cards, and the mall is only two metro stops from the airport. Two birds with one stone, and one parking fee.

We bundled up and drove to the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, and parked in my favorite locale, just outside the entrance to the men's department at Nordstrom's. There are always empty spots near the doors, and there are always empty spots along the outer wall (and away from other cars) for those moms who might need to do a quick nursing session before hitting the shops. I decided to carry Diggory in the Moby Wrap for this outing. I wasn't sure if there was an elevator or ramp up to the Exhibit Hall at the airport (more on that below), but I knew it was up A LOT of stairs. I didn't want to haul the stroller up too far. (And I didn't want to leave it outside the Exhibition Hall at the risk of it being identified by the segway-riding airport police as "unattended baggage." Yikes!) Anyway, carrying around a 25 pound, 10 1/2 month old baby for two hours is sort of like a workout (actually, not "sort of" at all!), so again, two birds, one stone. We made our way to the metro via escalators (vs. elevators, another added benefit of not taking the stroller) and caught the train to the airport (Blue/Yellow lines toward Franconia/Springfield/Huntington). Once you're off the train, follow the signs to Terminals A and B. Exit to your right out of the station entrance and follow the signs to Parking A and Abingdon Plantation.




You'll end up outside in the walkway to Parking A. And then you'll see the big mound of earth between the two parking garages. The entire site is handicap/stroller accessible, and there are several comfortable benches for taking a break.

There are five very well done interpretive panels that describe the history of the Abingdon Plantation site, the families that lived there, and the preservation efforts undertaken over the past century to protect and stabilize the site as the landscape surrounding it continues to change. All that remains now are the outline of the foundations of the main house and one wall and partial chimney of the detached kitchen.

Bear with me, and I will transcribe a passage from the most general and introductory interpretive panel, courtesy of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority:

"The land that Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport occupies today was once part of a plantation. This hill and the ruins on it are all that remain of the house that stood here for nearly 190 years. Abingdon, as this tract of land on the Potomac River was called, witnessed sweeping historical changes. The land was owned for many years the by Alexander family, for whom Alexandria, Virginia was named. John Parke Custis, George Washington's adopted stepson, moved his family to Abingdon in 1778. Through the Custis family, Abingdon is associated with families of the Virginia plantations of Mount Vernon, Stratford Hall, Kenmore, Woodlawn, and Arlington. Abingdon survived Union occupation during the Civil War and the end of plantation life. However, the encroachment of industry finally took its toll on Abingdon, which fell into disrepair until it burned in 1930. Eight years later, the land was chosen as the site of an airport designed to serve the Nation's Capital. As National Airport evolved, the ruins of the plantation house remain preserved on the hill as a testament to the rich history of this land."

Below are two historical photographs of the main house at Abingdon, although the dates are unknown. If you'd like to do a bit more reading, I found this entry on Wikipedia interesting. And, if you're up for even more reading, do a quick search on Google Books. You'll find a handful of references to Abingdon Plantation in various free eBooks.

After we explored the site at ground level, we trekked up four flights of stairs on the north side of Parking Garage A to get an aerial view. I've always thought that you can get a better sense of the layout of historic ruins from seeing them from above. As an extra reward for the climb, you can get some pretty spectacular views of the "new" and "old" airport terminals, the Potomac River, and even the tops of some of D.C.'s most iconic monuments. The blurry panoramic image below does not adequately translate the spectacular scene.

I did my research before heading off to the airport and learned that there is an Exhibit Hall located in the airport's original terminal. If you go back into the main/new terminal building, follow the signs to Terminal A. (Terminal A is the original terminal built between 1938 and 1941.) Turns out that the Exhibit Hall is handicap/stroller accessible after all. You can see the small lift in the image below.

The Exhibit Hall occupies the original dining room, above the grand lobby and observation room in historic Terminal A. The remaining art deco decor is quite striking, and you can almost imagine gloved ladies and dandy gentlemen milling about the terminal in a time when air travel was new and fancy. The display cases contain objects from both Abingdon Plantation's long history and the airport's own transformations and development. The Exhibit Hall is definitely worth the twenty minutes or so it takes to browse the cases and didactic panels. Stop on in the next time you find yourself waiting for a delayed flight! (Or, make a special trip to the airport on a Thursday afternoon like I did. Sigh. Wow.)

The grand and sun-filled lobby has a great view of the runway and lots of seating on tiered levels. If you're looking for a quiet place to take your babe, you can't do much better than this. Yes, it's wide open, but if you're nursing on one of the lower levels, no one can see you. Besides, everyone will be rushing past behind you, probably running late for their flight. The open space is pretty attractive to crawling babies too! If you walk further down toward Terminal A, you'll come across a smaller lobby full of typical airport benches, and (wonder of all wonders!) a handful of wooden rocking chairs! This little nook isn't as quiet as it used to be because Jet Blue set up their new ticket counter just across the hall.

On your way back to the main terminal, take a gander at the display cases between the grand lobby and the "rocking chair nook." The Gallery Walk, as it is called, currently displays the exhibition Pushing Process, organized by DC GlassWorks and Washington Printmakers Gallery. The main terminal (Terminals B and C) was finished in 1997 and designed by architect Cesar Pelli, who called it "a rich sequence of visual experiences." The visual experience of the expansive terminal is enhanced by the inclusion of thirty works of public art. You can view a slideshow of all thirty works here. Below, Diggory and I are posing in front of Kent Bloomer's Foliated Trellis.

The next time you're in the airport, take a moment to ponder some art or wander through the ruins of a historic plantation. You might be surprised by what you see and what you learn. Embrace your inner explorer and step off the beaten path.

(And, yes, when we got back to the mall, I did use my giftcards. New SMALLER jeans! Woo hoo!)

Mail Call!

On a blustery but sunny winter morning, Diggory and I ventured out to meet up with other mommas and their babies at the National Postal Museum. I had never been, and I was excited to visit. The museum is conveniently located adjacent to Union Station, in the lower level of the historic City Post Office Building. There is ample parking in the Union Station ramp. We parked on the roof near the elevators that lead down to the train platforms and shops. Important: You can get two free hours of parking if you validate your ticket (no purchase necessary), but ONLY if you park for less than two hours. I was there for two hours and twenty minutues-ish, and I had to shell out $13.00 for parking. Lesson learned. Once inside Union Station, navigate your way through the shops and toward the ground level metro entrance. You'll exit onto First Street, and the entrance to the museum will be directly in front of you, across the street and behind the domed Capital Bikeshare station. Once inside the building, you'll go through security, and make your way down the long (and beautiful!) hallway toward the entrance to the museum. There is a set of escalators and an elevator just past and to the left of the museum information desk. Go down. (Also, the bathrooms are really nice. They are on the lower level, across the hallway from the elevators and behind the escalators. I've become quite fond of bathrooms that have the handicap, stroller-sized, stalls closest to the door. Smart, yes?)


The museum is organized around a multi-story atrium that serves as the museum's main hall with several galleries/exhibitions around the perimeter. The main hall is called "Moving the Mail" and displays a multitude of vehicles used to transport mail. Airplanes are suspended from above and mail trucks, trains, and a stagecoach fill the floor. There is plenty of open space to let babies crawl around (as opposed to being exclusively confined to their strollers!) and our small group of mommas and babies was able to find a quiet spot for snack time and to enjoy the sun-filled atrium.





We started our investigation of the history of the postal service by exploring the gallery appropriately named "Binding the Nation." Arranged chronologically, the gallery begins in the late-1600s and moves into the present day, discussing how the mail travels from place to place - and where those places were and are! Did you know there was a mail route from the east coast to the west coast via ship around Cape Horn, rather than across land? Very interesting. Also, put your baby in the stagecoach, like I did, and snap a picture. It will be cute.





In the "Customers and Communities" gallery, you can try your hand at sorting mail, and in the "Systems at Work" gallery, you can scan barcodes and watch a panoramic video of modern mail sorting and tracking equipment. "The Art of Cards and Letters" gallery currently displays a small exhibition about the importance of mail to troops overseas.


I was particularly drawn to the Stamp Gallery, even though the majority of the gallery space was closed for exhibition deinstallation and installation. I collected stamps in my younger years and, let's face it, I like art, and stamps are like little pieces of art. The exhibition Alphabetilately describes and tells the stories of various stamps and postal services themes from A to Z. The alphabet is at stroller level and potentially entertaining for the younger crowd who might need a distraction.




The Education Center, tucked away in the corner of the main hall, has several touch screen computers. The "Museum's Must-Sees" page might be particularly helpful in planning your visit or for getting an introduction to the museum, if you stop there first, rather than stumbling upon it at the end of your trip like we did.

Having covered the museum in just over two hours, including a good bit of time chit-chatting with the other mommas, we took a quick spin through the gift shop and made our way back to the car. The stroller blew about 100 feet across the top of the parking lot (I mentioned it was windy, right?) while I was buckling the babe into the carseat...never a dull moment...and then we were on our way home. And then we decided to not go home. We called daddy and went out to lunch!

Bioluminescence!

Diggory and I set forth on our inaugural Museum+Momma outing the afternoon of this past Thursday, Januray 5th. I decided we should hit up one of the obvious choices, the National Museum of Natural History. Dinosaurs, whales, sparkly gemstones, butterflies, and honey bees. What could be more entertaining?! We got a bit of a late start, arriving at the museum just after 2pm. I still sometimes find it difficult to get out of the house before noon. Diggory eats lunch around 12:30-1pm, and it sometimes takes the little fella almost 45 minutes to actually get all the food in his mouth. He's trying though. (And Momma's trying to not only feed him Muenster cheese. It was my favorite as a child too, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.)

I digress...


For momma's with babies, don't forget to enter the museum through the Constitution Avenue (North) side. That's where you'll find the ramp, unless you really want to carry your stroller up the stairs on the Madison Avenue (South) side and have a Rocky-inspired moment when you reach the summit. There are bathrooms just past the security post (and the handicapped stalls are big enought for strollers.) Also, I should mention, that we parked at Daddy's office in Rosslyn and took the metro to the Federal Triangle station (Blue/Orange). I've found that taking the metro, even with a baby/stroller, is way less stressful than trying to find parking downtown. Just my opinion.



First, we made our way to the Rotunda to see the big elephant. Diggory was more entertained by the echoes his own happy squealing made, but that's okay. We asked a very nice tourist to take our picture. And we returned the favor. Then we headed into Mammals Hall. Very cool, and great for kids. Taxidermy animals probably make more sense to little kids than skeletons. (Further along in our visit, Diggory was totally unimpressed by the dinosaur skeletons.) We saw a young gentleman sketching (very well, I might add) in the exhibit of African mammals. I love watching people sketch in museums, though I try not to stare at their work. I wouldn't want someone watching me! Diggory seemed fairly taken by the hippopotamus, so I took his picture. There are a few skeleton reproductions in relief at stroller height in the back of the mammals exhibits, which Diggory seemed to enjoy touching. I was trying to keep my eye out for things he could reach out and feel since he's still too young for the Discovery Room.

We traveled pretty quickly through the Human Origins galleries and found ourselves in the back of the Ocean Hall. The special exhibitions gallery currently displays The Bright Beneath: The Luminous Art of Shih Chieh Huang. It was AMAZING! Sadly, the exhibition ends tomorrow, January 8th, and I'm so glad we stumbed upon it before its closed. Huang was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow in 2007 and studied deep-ocean species in the collections of the museum. He was inspired by an adaptation called bioluminescence, which allows sea creatures to produce light. The gallery is almost completely dark and filled with motorized creatures made from computer parts, wire, plastic tubing, and color-changing lights, some on the floor, some suspended from the ceiling. Diggory was totally enthralled, as was everyone else I saw in the gallery. One of the most intriguing parts of the exhibition, especially for someone who has done my fair share of exhibition isntallation, was a time lapse video of how the exhibition was put together. You can watch the video online here.

The Bright Beneath was certainly the highlight of our visit, but we carried on to see what other treasures lay ahead. We wheeled through the rest of the Ocean Hall (Diggory liked the fish tanks) and buzzed back through the Rotunda and into the Dinosaurs galleries. I totally thought Diggory would love it, but he didn't. Maybe I need to give him a few years. Momma eavesdropped on a conversation outside the FossiLab. Yes, I like to know what the scientists are brushing off tiny fossils. It was pretty quiet in this section of the gallery, actually, and there are benches. Maybe not ideal for breastfeeding, but we stopped for a quick rest and some practice with our straw spout sippy cup.


After our short break, we took the elevator in the Rotunda up to the second floor. We popped in to see the Hope Diamond in its new, temporary setting "Embracing Hope," before entering the rest of the Gems and Minerals galleries. For moms with little kids, there's a whole display case of various gems and minerals arranged by color. Very didactic. Diggory thought the giant crystals were pretty cool too.


After Momma teared up watching rescue footage in the special exhibition Against All Odds: Resuce at the Chilean Mine, we sweep through another special exhibition, Race: Are We So Different?, which also closes tomorrow. The Korea Gallery on the north side of the second floor is quite beautiful, and very quiet. There are a few benches, so perhaps a good place for breastfeeding moms. Then we went through the Bones galleries. There were a lot of bones. Diggory didn't get it, and I wasn't terribly into it either (but maybe it was the four hours of sleep I got the previous night.) We took a spin through the exhibition Written in Bone next. Some of my colleauges from graduate school worked on this exhibit, and I had never been through it before. Fair warning to hormonal mommas, though. There are some reproduction and authentic skeletons of fetuses, babies, and young mothers, which you may find disturbing. I did.


On a lighter note, our next stop was the Insect Zoo. Maybe this time next year, when Diggory is almost two years old, he'll be more inetersted in small display cases of creepy crawlies. He just now understands that when I point my finger at something, I'm actually pointing my finger at something I want him to look at. He loved the honey bees though! Probably because I could roll the stroller right up to the hive and the clear plastic tube that exits out the window into the outside world of Washington, DC. Where do those bees get their pollen in January?


We didn't buy tickets for the live butterfly exhibit, mainly because you can't take strollers into the dome. Maybe we'll do that when either Momma or Daddy (or Grandma or Nanna or Grappy) can babysit the stroller, diaper bag, coats, purse, etc.

And then, all of a sudden, we had covered the whole museum! Wow!


We took the elevator all the way down to the ground floor and stopped at the coffee bar outside the Atrium Cafe (which was closed) for a quick snack before heading to the metro. I was so worried that we'd hit rush hour on the train, and I didn't want to be one of those moms trying to squeeze our stroller onto an already sardine-packed rail car. Luckily, and to my surprise, the metro wasn't all that crowded for 4:30pm on a Thursday, and we met a very nice grandma-type lady who kept Diggory entertained all the way back to Rosslyn. Diggory did NOT fall asleep in the car on the way home, as I was hoping he would, and he missed his afternoon nap. What he gained instead was his very first trip to the National Museum of Natural History and maybe some dreams of bioluminescent, robotic deep-ocean creatures.

Welcome to Museum+Momma!

Hello! I'm a Museum+Momma! This is my first blog post ever, and I'm really excited to start this adventure. Here's a little background about me and why I decided to start this blog.

I love museums. I've been working in museums, in one capacity or another since college (2003ish). I have worked at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (while studying art history at the University of Iowa) and the Renwick Gallery and Luce Foundation Center for American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. I graduated from the George Washington University in 2008 with a masters degree in museum studies. I joined the staff at the Society of the Cincinnati, which maintains its headquarters, museum, and library at Anderson House in June 2008 as their museum collections manager. In March 2011, my husband and I welcomed our first child, Diggory, into our lives, and I made the very difficult decision to become a stay-at-home mom. (Incidentally, I'm not completely out of the museum world. I founded Keen Consulting and Services, Inc. in the winter of 2010, and I am available to work on small and large museum, gallery, and private collections projects. More about Keen later.)

I love being a mom, but I want to keep up my close ties with the museum world. Over the past ten months, it's become just a little to easy to stay at home just a little too much. So, I decided, why can't I set a goal (a New Year's resolution, if you will) to go to one museum every week for the whole year? Voila! Museum+Momma. I'll use this blog to document our sojourns. And I say "our" because I am totally going to drag Diggory around with me. I'll make comments about all sorts of things, anything that comes to mind. Maybe my thoughts on collections management, conservation, exhibit design, interpretation, and where the best places are to change a diaper. See where I'm going with this?

If you follow this blog, let me know what you want me to write about and where you think I should go! And if you've had a great (or maybe not so great) museum experience, with or without a little one, let me know! I'd love to hear what you think too! Happy museuming!