One Last Day in DC

Today started with several speakers at the NACAC Legislative Conference, highlighted by Congressman Tom Petri from New York, in my opinion. It was pretty cool to hear from a former admissions counselor, now a member of the US House, and as a former college provost he has a great grasp of how the government interplays with higher education.

We had three visits on the Hill. We were supposed to meet with Rep. Wu but his office was very busy and we ended up with a nice young aide, though it felt like our visit wasn't very productive. When we went to Rep. Defazio's office, we were surprised to have him walk out and greet us, then stand there to talk briefly about our concerns. We were caught so off-guard that I think we had a bit of a "deer in headlights" reaction. At least I know I did. It was cool that he took the time to initiate a conversation. From there, we went to Rep. Hooley's office and met with one of her aides.

That left me with most of the afternoon on my own. This was my fifth trip to DC in the last six years and each year I've wanted to go to the national portrait museum at the Smithsonian. For the last five years, the building has been under renovation so I was determined to get there this time. My main target was the portrait gallery of the presidents, which I enjoyed immensely when Jeannette and I visited DC with my folks in the 80s. First, though, I walked through a good part of the rest of the museum, which had some incredible artwork. This set of figures caught my eye, for obvious reasons . . .


As did their creator's self-portrait . . .

Anyway, I really enjoyed walking through the presidential gallery (though I did fall asleep briefly while watching clips of various presidents' speeches).
It was really neat to be able to stand just inches away from some of the best known paintings in American history. A few items were reproductions, to avoid having the originals degraded by exposure to the light, but the vast majority were originals. I was interested to read that that this portrait of George Washington, and a matching one of Martha, was left unfinished on purpose because the agreement with the artist was that "upon completion" the paintings would belong to Martha. Gilbert Stuart liked what he had done so much that he wanted to keep it for himself to use as a model for other paintings. By leaving it incomplete, he wasn't obligated to turn it over to the Washingtons.

It was also interesting to look at these two life masks of President Lincoln. The first was done in 1860 and the second in 1865. The information with this exhibit pointed out how much more haggard the latter looked as the president had endured several years of the Civil War. I was also able to put my hand next to one of the plaster casts of his hands. His hands and wrists were considerably larger than mine, which shouldn't have come as any surprise, I guess.

This painting of James Polk caught my eye simply because at first, from a distance, I thought it was Mel Gibson . . .


Strangely enough, this portrait of Richard Nixon remains one of my favorites . . .When I last was at the portrait gallery, I liked it so much that I bought a print of it. I guess I've always been a sucker for Norman Rockwell. It was humorous to read that Rockwell himself noted that the portrait was "favorable" to Nixon, saying that he figured if he was going to err, it would be on the side of flattering the president.