Rather than give you a French inspired recipe using summer's most refreshing fruit, pastèque, I give you one of the most colourful house in Washington, DC and one of my favourite piece of street art in the city: the Watermelon house!! The row house is located at 1112 Q Street near Logan Circle. Its exposed side has been painted in pink and green to resemble a has a watermelon slice, complete with seeds. Story has it all started with a bad paint job and since everything I know about Logan Circle's famed Watermelon House I know from this Washington Post article, you can read all about it there too. Oh, and if you really want some recipes, I do have two super refreshing ones for you right ...
Art
So You Wanna Visit the Broad Museum?
Today, I dedicated 3 hours of my life to visiting Los Angeles' latest contemporary art space, The Broad (note: it's pronounced brode not brawd... ) Opened in September 2015, the brand new museum has already become one of the city's most instagrammed venue, thanks to some amazing (and very photogenic) art from the private collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, as well as a stunning building designed by world-renowned architectural firm Diller Scofido + Renfro. When I said I dedicated 3 hours to the museum, I should specify that only one of those was spent inside. The other two I spent lining up outside in the standby line. I learned a few things visiting The Broad, so here are a ...
Helping Raise/Raze Come to Life at Dupont Underground
I had a ball - lame pun intended - volunteering at the Dupont Underground with some of my friends this morning. This was actually my first time in the abandoned trolley station which plans to open its doors to the public on April 30 with its first art exhibit, “Raise/Raze.” "Raise/Raze" was the winning project of Re-Ball!, an open design competition for a site-specific installation in the underground space using the more than 650,000 translucent plastic balls from the National Building Museum's "Beach" installation. So today we helped built the installation by glue-ing a bunch of these balls ...
Postcard from Philladelphia: Mural Mile
I didn't venture too far for my first trip of 2016. Philadelphia is just an hour and half away from New York by train and less than two hours from Washington, so my NYC bestie Caitlin and I met up halfway for a quick early January birthdays day-trip in the City of Brotherly Love. Neither one of us had visited the new Barnes Foundation so we had agreed to make the new-ish museum our first stop (purchasing tickets for timed entry in advance is highly recommended). Afterwards, however, we took a break from the Renoirs to explore the open air "museum" that is Philadelphia's Mural Mile. With more than 3,000 murals, Philadelphia is one of the top cities in the US for street art (according to ...
Experience the sparkle of the season at Georgetown GLOW
Two years ago my friend Sylvain Cornevaux, then Cultural Director for l'Alliance Française, partnered with the Georgetown Business Improvement District and other groups to bring a week-long public art and light display festival to DC's oldest neighbour. Inspired by Lyon's renowned Fête des Lumières, the festival, now in its third year, has now evolved into Georgetown Glow, independently organized by the BID in parallel to their annual holiday window display competition. The 10-night light art exhibition puts a modern, artistic twist on traditional holiday displays and takes place nightly along the C&O Canal between December 11 and 20th (from 6-10PM). The event still has a bit of a ...
Save the Date: Screening of Full Moon in Paris at the National Gallery of Arts
I've got an idea for you: travel to Paris without leaving DC. Actually, without leaving the National Gallery of Art... On September 20th, the National Gallery of Art is hosting a 4PM screening of Les Nuits de la Pleine Lune/Full Moon in Paris, a masterful comedy of manners by new wave film maker Eric Rohmer that was recently restored. You can read a summary of the film here. Also on view at the National Gallery of Art right now (and through October 4th) are 50 of the most important and beloved paintings of Paris and its environs by impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. Never heard of Caillebotte? You're not alone ;-) "Known" as the “unknown Impressionist” in light of Cézanne, Degas, Monet ...
Off the Beaten Path: ToKi’s SYNTH SERIES 002 Yarn Installation
My (Southern Republican) husband always jokes around that he is very vanilla, and that I bring a little bit of spice, the rum raisin flavour if you will, to his life. I don't know about that, but I definitely bring him out of his comfort zone on a regular basis ;-) Like, the other day, for example, when I "dragged" him semi-willingly to an abandoned warehouse near the Rhode Island Avenue metro stop to check out an art installation by ToKi. Dragged him to this building: ToKi is a collaborative effort by two recent Howard University architecture graduates, Khai Grubbs and Toluwalase Rufai. Their latest work is a colourful art installation called SYNTH SERIES 002. Their main material: yarn, ...
Postcard from Philadelphia: 13th & Locust’s Rainbow Crosswalk
It was the day after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide in the U.S. My parents and I were in Philadelphia to catch the Hermione tall ship while she was making her way up the East Coast. We were wandering around the city's Mural Mile, a 2.5 mile loop through downtown, to catch some of Philadelphia's most iconic street art. Suddenly, a pop of colour on the ground caught our attention for a change. At the intersection of 13th street and Locust, rainbow stripes had been painted on the pedestrian crosswalks, forming a bright and bold square. Turns out, this didn't just pop overnight following the Supreme Court decision. It had been planned long ...
When You Wish Upon a Star Tree
Have you made your wish yet? Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree for Washington, DC art installation is back on the mall this summer. Making a wish is simple: head to the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden before Labour Day and find a dogwood tree across from Giacometti’s “Monumental Head.” Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper (pencil and white paper tags are provided). Fold it and tie it around a branch of the Wish Tree. I made my wish earlier this summer, though I’m still waiting for it to come true. Like the love locks in Paris, which are frequently removed by the city, museum staff will clear up the tree several times a week throughout the summer so that there is room for ...
N Street Murals Project: 3 Buildings, 3 Artists
March 14 was a miserable day for a run. On top of that, the winter had dragged on so my husband's hadn't trained outdoors as much as he had wanted to. But rain or shine, in this case rain and lots of it, the D.C. Rock'n Roll marathon and half marathon was happening, and my husband was running it. And that could mean only one thing for me... I'd be out there cheering. My favourite spot on the route is right across the street from NPR, since that's an easy marker and it's close enough to home. After I spotted my favourite runner, I decided to make a detour and swing by the new(ish) Unleashed by Petco store in NoMa on my way home. And that's when I spotted a bright mural taking up an entire ...
