It is a genuine love for art that compels me to be always looking. Looking at paintings, drawings, sculptures, fountains, architecture, public parks, sky, water, and landscapes. Looking at color, symmetry, repetition, patterns, textures, shadows, and light. I filled my free time this year (and, sometimes that was my lunch break at work) with exhibitions, lectures, museum visits, reading artist's biographies, photography, blogging, and volunteer work at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.
This was an artfully enjoyable year beginning with my Monuments Men mania. After the release of the movie in February, I read two books; saw an exhibition and attended a lecture about the National Gallery of Art's own Monuments Men, who participated in the World War II effort to save Europe's art treasures; published two posts on this blog and posted a dozen facts and photos on my Art According to Cary Facebook page about this subject; and watched the documentary, Rape of Europa. I'm still fascinated by this story as Nazi-looted art continues to make news headlines around the world.
In May, I participated in a National Trust for Historic Preservation Instagram contest and was invited to photograph a behind-the-scenes tour of Union Station in Washington. It was a great experience with a guide from the Trust about the current preservation efforts. It got me hooked on Instagram as an outlet for my quirky, and I hope fun and visually interesting, photographic vignettes.
Indelible artistic moments this year included seeing James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington for the first time, discovering enchanting Bartholdi Park near the U.S. Capitol, and seeing the beautifully stylized musical about Edgar Degas and the model for his famous sculpture, Little Dancer, at the Kennedy Center. And, artistic intrigue abounded daily living with my partner, an artist!
Thank you to everyone who joined me on this journey of artistic discovery and I hope you will always keep looking.
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