Researching, Part 1

The last week in October I left my family in the capable hands of Grandma Dorothy and took a research trip to Washington D.C. and New York City.

Nate and Beckett took me to the airport. Beckett enjoyed the view from his new car seat.
My trip started in Washington D.C., well, technically I flew to Baltimore, MD. I then took the airport shuttle to the train station and took Amtrak to Union Station. (Fair warning, I'm very proud of all of my use of public transportation.) My friend, Cristy, from graduate school at BYU picked me up and we went to visit the Corcoran and Reynolds Museums. We also walked by the White House. Then we went back to her house to make tasty fish tacos. It was so fun to see Cristy again.
Cristy took me to Nate's cousin Julie's house where I'd be staying for the next two nights. Thanks Julie! I loved your little place.

In the morning I made my way (via the metro) to the Archives of American Art, located in this building:
I spent the next two days going through the files of a little-known Philadelphia artist who died in 1918, H. Lyman Sayen. After the archives closed I walked over to the Smithsonian American Art Museum to see Sayen's art in person.
I was not disappointed. Sayen's painting, The Thundershower, has a place of honor, and it's absolutely lovely in person.
Check out these details:
Sayen is getting lots of love right now. In the gift shop you can get The Thundershower t-shirts, umbrellas, and scarves. Pretty impressive for an artist that pretty much no one has ever heard of. Maybe his ship has come in.
I went to a lot of museums on my trip, but I think the Smithsonian American Art Museum was my favorite. Nine of the paintings and sculptures in my dissertation are on display at the museum, and seeing art in person, especially art you are writing about, is always exciting. Besides, I always love when American art gets its very own museum.
The hall of Paul Manship's is quite delightful. This sculpture, Dancer and Gazelles, is one of the stars of chapter 3.
One of Paul Meltsner's paintings of Martha Graham is on display in the Bravo! section, which featured portraits of stage and screen stars. Meltsner's Grahams make their appearance in chapter 5.
The Bravo section is displayed in the mezzanine on floor 3 off the Grand Hall. Very cool.
Some other views in the museum:

I have a fondness for the quaint, naive works of the early colonialists.
Glowing Tiffany stained glass:
Thomas Wilmer Dewing paints a piano:
An awesome Georgia O'Keeffe skyscraper:
Twilight anyone? How fitting (strange?) that they painted the wall behind Eve this deep red.
I wouldn't mind adopting a Raphaelle Peale still life.
I kind of fell in love with the Luce Foundation's visible storage. The Smithsonian American Art Museum was my first encounter with it, but it can also be seen at the Met and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The visible storage is kind of like a library, with rows of shelves and stacks of art all behind glass. It's a pretty cool space.
On my second day at the archives I walked down to The Mall during lunch.

I went over to the Freer Gallery to visit James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room. It's pretty much the best reconstructed room ever.I sat on one of these benches and ate my lunch.
Before I left D.C. for New York City I went back to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Here I am in Sayen's Thundershower.

Now on to NYC.