I first noticed them when I was coming up the escalator at the Farragut West Metro stop with my son’s fourth-grade class on a field trip to Decatur House in February — these perforated metallic discs that glowed even in the daylight.

They stopped me in my tracks, they were so beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at all those holes — like snowflakes almost, each one a different size:

I thought to myself that I couldn’t remember seeing them before. And now I know why. I was honored to be invited to the formal dedication of the Farragut Spheres yesterday, a sculptural light installation by Michael Enn Sirvet, a DC engineer-turned-artist who brings his scientific background into his sculptures.

The installation is the result of a collaboration between Metro, the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, and the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities.

“Farragut Spheres is what art in transit is all about — as travelers enter or exit the station, it provides an unexpected delight along the way,” said Michael McBride, Metro’s Art in Transit manager. (Metro has an Art in Transit manager?? We learn something new every day!)

The Metro already has 30 commissioned art installations throughout the system, said Richard Sarles, general manager and CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. “This is just a fabulous addition to that,” he said. “Michael is an engineer like me — what he’s doing here is a great addition to society.”

Michael Enn Sirvet

Michael, looking very Zen in his Mao-collared suit jacket, explained the motivation behind his work since he left the engineering field in 2008: Engineering “has been reflected in my work since the very beginning,” he told the crowd, over the groaning of the escalators and while confused commuters came and went. The combination of the natural and the industrial is what fascinates him.

He started “drilling holes in most of my sculptures and filling them with bolts,” like this:

"A Forgotten Place," 2007 (wow!!)

But then he and some friends happened to be watching a documentary on Ecuador at one point, which featured a square mile of ancient rocks “that had been worn away to the point of staggering beauty,” he said yesterday. “I ran back to the shop and started drilling holes and NOT filling them.”

Here is the result — a sculpture called Millennia from 2009 that served as the inspiration for the Farragut Spheres:

Michael drilled every single hole in this hemisphere himself.

This piece received an award for Excellence in Metal Craft by the James Renwick Alliance, which supports the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery across from the White House. (Small world — I’m a newly minted member of the JRA!) The piece got noticed by the Golden Triangle BID, and this project at Farragut West culminates almost three years of planning since then.

The installation forms an 80-foot wall of 20 concave discs of differing sizes, each one individually illuminated with custom-designed LED lights. Alex Cooper, a lighting designer for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, designed those lights, which glow anywhere from yellow to orange to pale green.

The lights glow over the crowd at yesterday's dedication.

All told, there are more than 139,000 holes in those spheres, only Michael did not drill all of them himself. He got assistance from Products Support Inc. in Jessup, MD, a machine shop whose bread and butter comes from fabricating parts for things like… fighter jets.

Union Electric Company from Baltimore installed the lights (other projects to their credit include the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap).

The Farragut West project is part of a strategic plan to make the Golden Triangle district a more pleasant area to work in and visit, said Leona Agouridis, the BID’s executive director.

“Art is a way to make the neighborhood much more enjoyable for people,” she said. Next on tap is an installation at the Farragut North Metro, just across Farragut Park. The two projects will then bracket the square between K and I streets. “We kind of see that (space) as our town square.”

I was sad to see an obituary in the Washington Post this morning about longtime news photographer James Atherton. I never knew him personally, but my godfather, who for decades served as superintendent of the U.S. Senate Press Photographer’s Gallery, did know him quite well, so I’ve always heard stories about him.

Since my background is in news, I’ve always been so taken with really great news photography, and Atherton was certainly among the best.

Here's a photo of Atherton at work, party of a gallery of images that ran in today's obituary.

It’s a shame that so often we don’t get to study someone’s work until they’ve died. I’m just glad The Post included a great gallery of images from Atherton’s career along with his obituary online. Here are some of my favorites:

I found a wonderful interview with Atherton that was recorded in 2008, in which he describes this image as “what I call my greatest Hail Mary,” he told The Candid Frame blog. That’s because the camera was perched in a bracket on top of a bamboo pole, and he used a cord the snap the shot of Martin Luther King delivering his famous speech. “You shoot blind,” he said, “so you pray a little” that you’ll get the shot.

“I had such a love-hate relationship with him,” Atherton said in the Candid Frame interview, referring to President Kennedy. “You couldn’t like him and do your job, so if he did something dumb, you would make [the picture], you wouldn’t hesitate.”

Atherton was photographed here shooting behind Kennedy as he delivered a speech in the summer of 1963. He said he was always looking for clever angles to shoot the news, because he was constantly competing with a scrum of other photographers each day, most of whom shot photos from the same angle and perspective.

Atherton also spoke of cropping as an art — coming really close in on a scene, or a face, to get to the core of an image’s meaning. I found another version of the above photo in the Corbis archive — uncropped with a much wider angle.

Pretty interesting difference in perspective, huh?

Here are some images that are cropped mightily to capture the emotion and personality of some of the 20th century’s most memorable political figures:

Former FBI Director L. Patrick Gray III, during the Watergate hearings in 1973.

John Mitchell, President Nixon's attorney general who was sentenced to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volker's smoking habit gave Atherton an amazing shot.

You don't need to see President Johnson's eyes to see into his soul here. Atherton's photo won a top prize from World Press Photo for this shot.

Atherton’s heydey most certainly intersected with my grandmother’s — Dorothy McCardle was a reporter with The Post’s Style Section, covering the first ladies, embassies, and Washington’s official party circuit from the Kennedy to Ford administrations. On top of that, my mother, Marcia Maddox, worked in Lady Bird Johnson’s press office. And my godfather Maurice and godmother Lanny Johnson were another rich source of stories behind the scenes of history. Lanny STILL covers presidential inaugurations for GermanTV here.

So news relics from those decades are especially dear to me; images from those times are a family album of sorts, as it’s hard to differentiate between what I’ve read, and the stories I’ve heard from my own family.

I think I’m going to have to give Lanny a call now, and go over to her house in Chevy Chase to see the wealth of what Maurice left behind, a lifetime of equally special imagery from last century’s political figures.

But for now, let’s celebrate the work of James Atherton, and remember that news photography can rise to the level of art in an expert’s hands.

Atherton in a press car, no doubt in front of a motorcade. This photo ran with his death notice on the National Press Photographers Association Web site.

Atherton with his press credentials to cover President Eisenhower's 1953 inauguration.

As we all wait to see what Hurricane Earl will do to our beaches today, I want to send you off on the holiday weekend with this stunning — and stormy — shot of the Washington Monument that a former Washington Spaces photo intern, Matthew Dandy, shot from atop the W Hotel downtown. Happy Labor Day.

Photograph by Matthew Dandy

When it comes to using pictures on a blog, most of us rely on our amateur point-and-shoot skills to bring you an image of a beautiful room. At times photos are provided, or we snatch them from elsewhere on the Web. But none of us, I think, ever has the money to actually hire a photographer to shoot a house for us so we can blog about it.

That’s why I was so excited when Morgan Howarth called me recently. He was one of our best photographers from Washington Spaces, who probably shot more covers than anyone else. He teaches a class on architectural photography, and he wanted to know if I knew of any beautiful spaces that he could bring his class to shoot. His students get practice, and I could get free, professional-grade photography, all orchestrated by him.

Well, twist my arm, Morgan. Stay tuned for blog posts in the next week or two that will feature his students’ photography. In the meantime, I wanted to share some of his work — any of you who have ever snapped a room knows how difficult it is to make a picture translate the from what you see with your own eyes. Morgan just makes them sing.

This is the last shoot I did with Morgan before the magazine folded -- a glorious home in Warrenton, Va, designed by Dana Tydings.

The den at the Warrenton house -- Morgan threw some chemicals on the logs to create a blaze of fire that lasted about 30 seconds -- enough time to get the shot.

The breathtaking breakfast room from the same house, which was slated to be the cover of Spaces' Jan/Feb issue, if it hadn't folded!

The exterior of a house in Arlington. Morgan manipulated the image to intensify that dusky sky, which makes the house pop off the page.

One of Morgan's talents is that you can tell him roughly what you want to capture in a room, and he will find the perfect angle to include it all -- from a sconce on the right to a piece of the outside through the window on the left, all the while highlighting the central focal point.

This bath by Nancy Colbert in the 2008 DC Design House was long and skinny, but he managed to capture all of its unique elements.

This living room by Frank Babb Randolph was featured on a cover in 2008, and to this day, it remains a memorable image in many people's minds.

Morgan made this family room from one of DC dermatologist Tina Alster's former homes almost look like a Mondrian painting, making all of the color blocks stand out with his lights.

This picture of a Water Street apartment in Georgetown made me fall in love with Spaces even before I worked there. Getting the exposures correct to show both the outside and the inside is truly an art.

Such a quiet setting, which makes the subtle colors across the image really shine.

I’ll close with this striking vignette. Expect to see more of Morgan’s pictures with his students very soon!

]]> http://dcbydesignblog.com/artphoto/morgan-howarths-architectural-photography/feed/ 9 http://dcbydesignblog.com/artphoto/modern-renaissance-gold-leaf-studios/ http://dcbydesignblog.com/artphoto/modern-renaissance-gold-leaf-studios/#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 03:02:10 +0000 Jennifer http://dcbydesignblog.com/?p=827

Take a look through this gilder’s frame studio — just a quick browse:

A 17th-century cathedral tabernacle frame, 17 feet high by 11 and a half feet wide.

Now, I ask, where do you think you are? A centuries-old atelier in Florence, or maybe Paris? Wrong!

If you’ve been out sipping beer at the Brickskeller near Dupont Circle lately, it’s right beyond the rear wall, accessible down the alley and around the back: Gold Leaf Studios is the only gilder’s workshop in Washington and among very few in the entire United States.

Bill Adair, whom I just came to know this week, invited me to his studios the other day to take a look around. The converted carriage house contains more than 3,000 frames, with some dating back to the 17th century, such as this one:

The origins of this frame are unclear. It's not gilded, revealing the natural, unfinished wood.

“I’m nuts about anything that can add to my story,” Bill told me. He is a walking encyclopedia of art history, and can hold forth on a frame’s provenance for as long as you are willing to listen — which is generally not as long as he is willing to talk. “I love my job!” he says, which pretty much goes without saying.

Here's an illustration of a palace-style frame, purchased at auction, inside another historic frame, which is inside of a "trophy" frame created in the early 20th century by the owner of a Ford distributorship.

He is a curator, historian, restorer, and creator of frames — oh, and he’s a master gilder, too, which is the art of making the thinnest leaves out of gold and then applying them throughout the nooks and crannies of elaborately carved frames.

“There is no place in the country that does what we do,” he told me. Considering the work orders in his shop at the time I visited, I think I believe him.

Adair’s frames are like his children — he has so much to say about each one. His proudest accomplishment, lately, is creating two replicas of a frame that was presented to George Washington by Louis XVI, containing Louis’ likeness:

Bill Adair peers out from the frame. Look closely, and you'll see Louis' initials in the top corners, and in each bottom corner, the letters G and W. Clearly, political one-upsmanship is as old as time.

The replicas were commissioned by Mount Vernon. Adair will deliver one to Paris in May, at a gathering of the European Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as it celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan.

“It’s going back to a unified Europe in a symbolic gesture of continued support between our country and Europe,” Bill said.

The other replica will go back to Mount Vernon, where it will likely hang in the house, while the original will go to the Mount Vernon museum.

But that’s not the only thing going at Gold Leaf Studios. Let’s go down to the workshop:

This antique frame is being restored.

This Mary is being taken back to her former glory for a DC church.

Adair has a government commission to create seals for various agencies and states.

I'm particularly fond of the Florida seal -- I used to be a reporter for newspapers there.

This papier-mache frame was created by Antonio Gaudi in 1903. Designer Barry Dixon asked Adair to replicate it.

Bill's studio also does furniture conservation and restoration. This 1920 satinwood table had 78 percent of its decorative trim missing. They restored the trim, which looks like inlaid ivory, but really it's just a masterly paint job.

Bill, a Bethesda native who started his business nearly 30 years ago, is trying to pass on the art of gilding through a series of training classes he regularly conducts for city children at the National Building Museum. And even if you’ve never thought about the frame that goes around a picture before, he will engage you, like it or not.

And beyond his work for the State Department, numerous museums, churches, and his lectures here and abroad on frame history and conservation, he can simply provide anyone with a frame for their own artwork  It’s definitely worth a visit.

Here are a couple more pictures I took there, to send you off for a great weekend.

I had one of those days where nothing turned out how it was supposed to be. I won’t bore you with the details, but it made me think of photographer John McDermott‘s photographs of Cambodia — his use of infrared film and the way he develops his pictures make you see these places as if they are in an altered state of reality.

McDermott began photographing Angkor, Cambodia in 1995 when he went there to witness a total eclipse of the sun.

When McDermott saw the surreal play of light over temples and ruins during a total eclipse of the sun in Angkor, the spectacle inspired a long-term photography project that resulted in the recent publishing of Elegy: Reflections on Angkor, a book that led the New York Times to call McDermott “the Ansel Adams of Angkor.” (You can order the book on John’s Web site, linked above.)

This dramatic image is featured on the cover of the book.

McDermott spent time in DC while his wife was finishing her dissertation. He credits Rockville’s Metropolitan Center for the Visual Arts and Photoworks in Glen Echo Park as his “lifeline” while he was here working on his photo development techniques in 2003 and 2004.

This combines the styles os Ansel Adams and Salvador Dali, in my opinion.

So, while my day didn’t go as planned, these pictures can teach us all to see things in ways we had never dreamed of. Elegy, indeed.

This is what the buds look like right now.

According to the National Park Service, our cherry blossoms have just entered the “peduncle elongation” phase that precedes the blooming. (See the full bloom schedule right here.) They predict that the peak blooms should arrive right smack in the middle of the Cherry Blossom Festival, which starts Saturday.

That means by next weekend, we’ll be in business. Even though I’ve lived here my whole life, I never cease to be in awe of all these thousands of trees, blooming like pink cotton candy all over the Mall.

I am currently out of town on a freelance assignment, so I will leave you with an image below of what is to come next week, when I will be back posting again. Have a great weekend in the meantime.

This is what we'll all be seeing next week.

My former editor, Trish Donnally, just sent me a link to the new Web site of photographer Kenneth M. Wyner, who had done gorgeous work for Washington Spaces through the years. I was overjoyed to see a section of his site dedicated to the work he did for us, which includes images that never made it into the magazine. Here are some of my favorites:

Designer Frank Babb Randolph, early Spring '06

Another room in Randolph's home.

Designer Barbara Hawthorn, Hopkins & Porter Architects, Winter '09

Inside the house above -- a shot that never made the magazine.

Bruno Freschi, Architect, early Spring '06

Freschi's home studio in the house above.

A "party barn" in Leesburg, VA by Blackburn Architects, early Winter '06

Private residence

Watergate remodel by Ponte Mellor Architects, early Winter '09

Another angle of the Watergate condo. Neither image made it into the magazine layout.

Designer Dana Tydings, Fall '06

Designer Dana Tydings, Fall '06

Ponte Mellor Architects, Spring '07

What a cool ride that was. Thanks for the memories, Ken! Have a great weekend, all.

]]> http://dcbydesignblog.com/artphoto/a-trip-down-memory-lane-with-ken-wyner/feed/ 6 http://dcbydesignblog.com/artphoto/architectural-illustration-maria-morga-and-michael-hampton/ http://dcbydesignblog.com/artphoto/architectural-illustration-maria-morga-and-michael-hampton/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:17:00 +0000 Jennifer http://dcbydesignblog.com/?p=528

It’s always fun comparing the architectural drawings of a room to the completed product — I especially love it when Candice Olson does that on HGTV’s Divine Design. But come to find out, there are other examples of great artists right in our backyard, and I saw their work in action last week at the DC Design House’s Bare Bones Tour. (See my post on the tour here.)

The first is Maria Morga, who is an adjunct professor at the Corcoran Gallery in color theory and perspective drawing. I first saw the work she did for Barry Dixon at the CharityWorks GreenHouse, which we published in Washington Spaces:

Then I saw her elevation for Victoria Sanchez’s room at this year’s DC Design House:

She also sent me some other drawings she’s done, and her clients aren’t too shabby. They include the St. Regis hotel downtown:

And the Greenbriar Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, WV:

Here’s one more of her interiors that I particularly like:

And now, Michael Hampton. When I met him on the tour last week, I had no idea that the beautiful sketches he displayed for the guest room he will decorate were his own:

And then I found out what a talented artist he is. Other blogs have featured his water colors in the past year, but I was seriously out of the loop.

Here are more of Michael’s room sketches. I would say this designer, a protege of Thomas Pheasant, is definitely in the right day job.

I blogged about Evelyn Avery for Washington Spaces last fall, and was pleased to see her — and her huge suite at The Willard — back again this month. When you step into Suite #510, you’ll see rooms and rooms full of antique oils, works on paper, handmade frames and mirrors, and other curiosities scattered everywhere. I especially loved this charming box of intaglios, placed on a table below a window looking out toward the Washington Monument:

More than 200 people have already made appointments to come visit the suite while Evelyn is here through March 18. Sip on cucumber-flavored water and nibble from nuts and candies as you browse — even the wet bar and powder room are filled with her wares. Not a single speck of wall is bare. And there is something here for everyone, from these incredible Japanese textile prints, to intricate colored drawings of planets and maps (framed just right, I might add): to 18th-century oils from the Barbizon School of French landscape painting. In keeping with that era, there are the most enchanting mini period mirrors in the suite’s foyer: I was most obsessed with a huge stack of reproductions of Picasso drawings. MUST HAVE some!

Note the hidden "Chien" in the black dog...

Even when she’s not in town, you can see her handiwork on every wall of the newly renovated Jefferson Hotel, where the architecture firm working on the interiors, ForrestPerkins, hired her to handle the entire hotel’s art and framing.

Designers call on Avery when they want only the best framing available, and they are willing to ship works to her to be framed in her shop in Atlanta. That’s why it’s a treat that she becomes local twice a year, so the shipping costs aren’t added on.

You don’t have to be a designer to make an appointment, however. Just call The Willard at 202.628.9100 and ask for her suite. But if you can’t go, that’s perfectly fine. Evelyn has a new service called Avery Housecalls — she’ll come to your house, look through your stuff, and determine what’s worth hanging, what might need to be rematted or reframed, or what might need to be rehung. Who knows, you might have a masterpiece in your basement and not even know it.

But do call her. Besides being an astute art dealer and brilliant framer, she’s delightful company.