October 28, 2026 - Volume V
Robin Moore: Public Art, Artist's Estates, Fine Art Appraisals, Silver Spring, MD.
It’s a good thing I am asked to limit what I say to 100 words, because this installation of 180 objects is undecipherable and also evidence that we each contain multitudes. The Hampton “Throne” at NMAA, built in secret over two decades by an African American veteran, is one of the coolest sights in Washington and nearly always on view. Is it a call to alien life, a plea for a medieval Catholic-style revelation, the refuge of a disenfranchised creator, a focused (or fragmented!) work of insanity, or a paean to crinkled aluminum foil? Its questions can’t be answered; what do you think?
Image Credit: James Hampton, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly, ca. 1950-1964, mixed media, dimensions variable, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of anonymous donors. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Mark Kelner: Artist, Washington, DC.
There’s always a moment when I walk through the Smithsonian American Art Museum and catch my first glimpse of Nam June Paik’s monumental Electronic Superhighway. It’s a rush of wonder, awe, and pride, all rolled up into something otherworldly. I imagine it’s the feeling people describe when they first see the Rocky Mountains or Yellowstone.
The comparison feels especially apt. Paik built the work from video, electronics, circuits, and their inevitable distortions. Yet, as a classically trained pianist, he also understood composition, rhythm, and harmony. Amid the chaos and control of Electronic Superhighway, I can hear his ‘music’.
In 2026, a year full of political and social divisions, and twenty years after the work entered the Smithsonian’s permanent collection, I find myself thinking about what makes something a national treasure. For me, this is one. I want to fight anyone who says otherwise.
Image Credit: Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, 1995, fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound, approx. 15 x 40 x 4 ft., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 2002.23, © Nam June Paik Estate, Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Lisa Blas: Artist, Brussels, Belgium.
Dear readers,
In the 1930s, Rockwell Kent was commissioned by the former U.S. Post Office headquarters to produce two murals depicting the pride of U.S. mail delivery service to its territories in the far north and far south—at that time, Alaska, and Puerto Rico.
Against a twilight landscape, Kent creates a cinematic scene of human interaction where mail is being delivered and exchanged, from one hand to another. The grid lines of pencil are visible under a palette of mauves, purples, whites, ivories, Naples yellow and burnt sienna. In the mind's eye, this modern work appears like a figural abstraction, similar to a duo-tone silkscreen.
While living and teaching in Washington during the mid-aughts, I visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery on a regular basis. These museums were sites of inspiration and research for my painting practice and for my students, where exhibitions and lectures were plentiful.
Years later, as part of my ten year blog entitled Monday's image, I often searched the Smithsonian's vast collections online for works of art—each time discovering new artists I was previously unaware of.
I invite you to type a search word or the name of an artist into their search engine—and you will find high resolution reproductions, biographical information about the artist, and full details on the artwork's specifications and provenance. For this post, I chose the word "WPA", Works Progress Administration—the history of which entails the employment of artists to produce public works for government buildings, such as murals, during the economic hardship of the Great Depression.
For those in the local area, the former U.S. Post Office is now the Clinton Federal Building, currently occupied by the Environmental Protection Agency. Two of Rockwell Kent's murals are located on the second floor, south wing—plus many works by other artists that were commissioned under the New Deal. According to the website, one can make an appointment to view them! I wish I could join you.
Image Credit: Rockwell Kent, Mail Service in the Tropics (mural study, U.S. Post Office Department, Washington, D.C.), ca. 1935-1936, pencil and oil on plywood, 13 1⁄2 x 26 1⁄2 in. (34.3 x 67.3 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
October 1, 2026 - Volume IV
Rebecca Cross: Ceramic Artist & Gallerist, Hillsboro, VA.
Wendell Castle’s “Ghost Clock”, 1985, is one of my favorite objects in the Renwick Gallery’s collection. Why has the museum draped a sheet over its imposing colonial grandfather clock? – it must need a repair. Passing by, the sheet doesn’t sway. Drawn closer – the drapery is wood! Astonishingly, the whole work is solid carved mahogany, the cinched fabric bleached white and the foot of the clock stained in walnut – exquisite trompe l’oeil. Now, without the minutes ticking, we are aware of nature’s quiet measure of time – the rings of the tree. Castle instructs us to slow down to see, to live.
Image Credit: Wendell Castle, Ghost Clock, 1985, bleached Honduras mahogany, 86 1⁄4 x 24 1⁄2 x 15 in. (219.0 x 62.2 x 38.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1989.68, © 1985, Wendell Castle. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Sandie Tropper: Appraiser, Washington, DC.
Not far from where Alma Thomas painted at her kitchen table in Washington D.C., this glorious rainbow of color can be seen at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). “Snoopy” was the “nickname” for the Apollo 10 lunar module as it was going to “snoop” for a possible landing site on the moon. Apollo 10 in 1969 served as a dress rehearsal for the first landing of a manned spacecraft, on the moon, which Apollo 11 accomplished later that year.
In this painting, Alma Thomas has interpreted the well-known photograph, “Earthrise,” taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission on December 24, 1968. Thomas used her paint and characteristic brushwork for her personal interpretation of events that changed our view of the world.
Image Credit: Alma Thomas, Snoopy--Early Sun Display on Earth, 1970, acrylic on canvas, 49 7⁄8 x 48 1⁄8 in. (126.8 x 122.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Vincent Melzac, 1976.140.1 Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Steven Cushner: Artist & Educator, Washington, DC.
In his book All The Beauty in the World , Patrick Bringley says “The first step in any encounter with art is to do nothing, to just watch, giving your eyes chance to absorb all that’s there."
So, here goes. I sit. I feel and I think.
I’m quiet, I’m calm, I’m relaxed.
I’m a kid wandering in the woods. I find a good hiding place. I build a fort.
BOWER is so simple that I think I can build it. But then I stop and ask myself “How“? BOWER seems effortless - it hides its skill and craftsmanship. It is both delightfully childlike and surprisingly sophisticated.
Martin Puryear creates a visual language of touch and thought. BOWER is clearly sculpture, but he arrives at sculpture through new doors - basketmaking and weaving and furniture making. Puryear dissolves the line which used to divide art and craft and has opened up new possibilities for sculpture.
BOWER lives in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, but would be equally at home in the Renwick Gallery. Or the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Or the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. Or the Cooper Hewitt.
BOWER does what all great artwork does - it connects the viewer’s past with the present moment while also opening up possibilities for the future.
Image Credit: Martin Puryear, Bower, 1980, Sitka spruce, pine, and copper tacks, 64 1⁄4 × 94 5⁄8 × 26 in. (163.3 × 240.2 × 66.0 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, Alexander Calder, Frank Wilbert Stokes, and the Ford Motor Company, 2002.18, © 1980, Martin Puryear. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
September 8, 2026 - Volume III
Melinda Becker: Art Patron, Washington, DC.
In early 2020, I had the pleasure of viewing this awe-inspiring depiction of the American West by Japanese artist Chiara Obata. Displayed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, it was part of an exhibit called “Chiara Obata: American Modern”. In 1942, Obata, along with his young family, had been forced to live in a Japanese internment camp in Topaz, Utah. His earlier work showcased the grim reality of life in a camp. At the camps, Obata opened an art school to help others cope with loss and displacement. For me, Obata’s work represents how beauty can surpass ugliness, giving flight to the indomitable human spirit.
Chiura Obata, Grand Canyon, May 15, 1940, watercolor on silk, 17 ½ x 21 ¾ inches, Amber and Richard Sakai Collection. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Bill Butler: Archival Art Services, Alexandria, VA.
Over the last 35 years, I have been very fortunate to work with many amazing objects from the Smithsonian Museums. Some of the best memories are from The American History Museum, working next to conservators treating the Ruby Red Slippers from the Wizard of Oz or Thomas Jefferson’s Bible (Incredible!).
A favorite project was framing a flag from Islay, Scotland. In 1918, during WWI, an American ship sank off the coast of this tiny island with over 200 American casualties. Four women from the village sewed an American flag from fragments of cloth, through the night, to be laid over the coffins, as each soldier was buried.
The framed flag was loaned to Islay, Scotland for the Centennial celebration in 2018.
Islay's American Flag, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, not currently on display. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Renée Stout: Artist, Washington, DC.
In the National Museum of African American History and Culture there is a room that showcases objects from various Black musical genres. They have everything from Chuck Berry's red Cadillac convertible, to an exact replica of Parliament Funkadelic's Mothership, which I was fortunate enough to have seen "land" in 1975 when the group was performing at Pittsburgh's now nonexistent Civic Arena (the original is reputed to be hidden on some overgrown land in Maryland just over the DC line and people in the know have sworn themselves to secrecy).
Growing up, Parliament Funkadelic was one of the most important musical influences on the development of my artistic aesthetic and musical tastes and that replica of the Mothership was used as a visual resource for a painting I did a couple of years ago titled, Sun Ra Returns, with Friends. Another object in that room that I return to again and again, is a "folk" guitar that has been altered into a "power object" with inserted materials by someone who wanted to ensure they could summon the power of Ancestral spirits through which to channel some mean blues.
Parliament Funkadelic's Mothership, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Level 4. Image courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
August 18, 2026 - Volume II
Tom Ashcraft: Artist, current boy-band fan, Asheville, NC.
The Moon Rock. I love that a rock from the moon, collected in 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew, the last crewed mission to the moon, is in the Air and Space Museum, and that millions of folks have touched it. Including me and maybe you.
On a side note, what a treasure the Smithsonian is, vast, free to the public, and one of the factors in my staying to set up a studio in DC after completing the Hogie House with the Jersey Devil Design Build group in the early 80’s. I could literally roam the museums, view, discover and research any historical object or idiosyncratic thing, and gather materials and/or talk to someone knowledgeable about it. That experience certainly shaped my practice and anchored my attention to the real world.
Who isn’t moved by a meridian of curiosity grounded in an institution whose mission statement is “The increase and diffusion of knowledge”?
A hand touching the Museum's lunar touchrock. Part of a photo series by Museum photographer Jim Preston.
Louis Jacobson, Photography and Visual Arts Critic, Washington City Paper, Washington, DC.
Steve Fitch (1949- ) has documented the American highway and the manmade sites that surround it, depicting western kitsch in a way that avoids cliché. Fitch’s finest photograph features a deserted, nighttime image of the Trail, an Art Deco drive-in movie theater in San Antonio. The vernacular fresco of a cowboy scene offers the perfect confluence of reality, fantasy, and art in the American West. The drive-in’s demolition, less than a decade after Fitch documented it, was, in retrospect, all but inevitable. So was what replaced it: a Walmart.
Steve Fitch, Drive-In Theatre, San Antonio, Texas, 1973, gelatin silver print, image: 9 1⁄2 x 11 1⁄8 in. (24.0 x 28.3 cm) sheet: 11 x 12 1⁄2 in. (27.9 x 31.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts
E. Brady Robinson, Photographer and Professor, Baltimore, MD.
Each fall, I bring students in Georgetown University's Senior Seminar in Art to the Hirshhorn Library and the National Gallery of Art Library, where librarians Anne Simmons and Jacqueline Protka introduce students to the libraries' holdings and share strategies for researching artists and art movements that inform their studio practice. These visits help fulfill the writing requirement for art majors and culminate in a final research paper that connects an artist, artwork, or movement to each student's creative practice, strengthening both their scholarship and senior exhibition.
The Hirshhorn Library and the National Gallery of Art Library
August 3, 2026 - Volume I
Franz Jantzen: Artist, Archivist, Washington, DC.
In 1955 Emmett Till, a 14-year old African-American, was lynched in Money, Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. This River Site marker is the second of four markers placed at the site where his body was pulled out of the Tallahatchie River. The first was stolen, this one was riddled with bullet holes, and the third was similarly shot up, capturing media attention in 2019 when frat boys posed with rifles in front of it. When a fourth bullet-proof marker was installed, it became the focal point of a white supremacist rally.
This sign was put on display at Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in front of “The Abstract Flag,” meant to evoke the Star-Spangled Banner which had previously hung there. In 2026, the marker is no longer on view.
Defaced Emmett Till Historic Marker, National Museum of American History, not currently on view.
Wayson R. Jones, Artist, Washington, DC.
Whenever I'm in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I pay a visit to Thornton Dial's The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle (2003). I urge you to do likewise and consider the irrelevance of ideas like "outsider" and "painting versus sculpture."
Thornton Dial, Sr., The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle, 2003, plastic soda bottles, doll, clothing, bedding, wire, found metal, rubber glove, turtle shell, artificial flowers, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on canvas on wood, 75 x 112 x 13 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Teresa Oaxaca, Painter & Draftsman, Arlington, VA.
I return to Whistler’s Peacock Room whenever I need to remember that art can become an environment rather than simply an object. The luminous gold peacocks, deep blue-green walls, and exquisite ceramics create a space where painting, architecture, and craftsmanship exist in perfect harmony. It is one of the rare places where I lose track of time. Every artist and every lover of beauty should experience this room at least once.
James McNeill Whistler, The Peacock Room, 1923, porcelain collection, National Museum of Asian Art (Freer Gallery of Art).
Andy Yoder, Artist, Educator, Washington, DC.
For me, no other object in the Smithsonian can equal the emotional and historic power of the top hat Lincoln wore to Ford’s Theater the night of his assassination. It feels incredibly personal, as if he just set it down, and reminds me that the events of that evening are relatively recent. The tragedy of a president who suffered and died for his determination to hold the country together is deepened by comparison to the divisive efforts of the current administration. However, as a reminder of the great conflict our country survived, this relic also provides hope for the future.
Abraham Lincoln's Top Hat, National Museum of American History.