Reston, Virginia and Washington, DC

Last weekend I exhibited my oil pastels at the Northern Virginia Fine Art Festival in Reston, VA.  Originally we were going to combine it with another small Chicago suburb show but decided to eliminate a little of the chaos of our summer schedule by dropping that show.  Still, because our nation's capitol is a mere 1800 plus miles from Angel Fire, we tried something new.  Rees set out and drove and I flew.  I thought it would be a wonderful way to save time and provide me with some extra studio time and energy.  And, it sort of worked.  I'm getting pieces done, working on the commissions I have lined up, keeping up with the house.  But, the energy that went into flying, including a 150 plus mile drive to the airport, a night in an Albuquerque hotel, delayed planes in Denver on the way home....meaning I wasn't able to pick up JuneBug until this morning..all that was a little much.  Plus it definitely added onto the baseline expense of doing that show.  So, I don't think that is how I'll do it again.  And, because of  the distance, I don't think it is a show I should do every year.  Still my sales were pretty good and the show was easy to do--good parking, good crowds.

But, since I left my camera connection in Rees' computer bag, I don't have any images to upload.  So I'll go into further detail on the show in a later post.

I did get to visit with my friend, David Bos.  And he was kind enough to wander parts of DC so I could get a pretty good museum fix.  We went to the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, where I absolutely fell in love with a Vermeer in the Dutch and Flemish Cabinet Galleries. Which one?  I think the Lady with the Red Hat..although online it doesn't have the luminescence that the actual painitng had...  We also visited the Chester Dale Collection at the National Gallery and I was very impressed.  Oh, to have ample money to collect paintings the way he and his wife did!  We also saw the Peacock Room at the Freer..I loved the way the collection was displayed.

Washington is a great place for visiting museums.  They are free so you can come and go as you like...spend hours or just hurry through.  My only complaint was that I didn't allocate enough time to see more!  If you haven't been, GO!