East Meets West

...at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. Woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige in a complete series of 53 prints depicting the Tokaido travelway. I went with Jim and Dave after a morning at the farmer's market. Note: a very large exhibit; not for the ADD.

PATRYK REBISZ

Cool work by Patryk Rebisz. I just watched "Between You and Me", rapid-fire shot on a Canon still camera.

Penn Platinums

Picasso by Penn.

Went to see the Irving Penn Platinum Prints today at the National Gallery of Art. I first saw Penn about... oh... 16 years ago at the NGA when I went to an exhibit for my high school photography class. These are platinum prints made in the '80s from images captured in the past, many in the '50s.

Also stopped in at the Dutch paintings, primarily to see the small exhibit of Jan de Bray, and enjoyed the Vermeers on permanent display. Mike and I browsed through the sculpture wing but I was more taken by the stunning new wood floors in the museum. They're stained white oak; I asked.

To view an interesting online album of Penn's work, go here and here.

to Cuong

The image below made me think of Cuong. My cousin died last night, of cancer. Nam mo a di da phat.

Beautiful Amalgamations

50 people see the sunset
Set by brevity.

If you don't know what flickr is, get out from under that rock! Neil Kandalgaonkar wrote a program that selects 50 arbitrarily chosen Flickr images that share the same tags and melds them together. The results are beautiful. We see the world the same, if we'd just soften our lines a bit.

The Soul of a Chef

If you've just finished the recommended Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, reach for The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I just finished it, and it makes me want to visit Per Se, Keller's new kitchen in New York City.

Hear them speak.

On August 20, James and David will be speaking at the Eva Zeisel Retrospective at the Hillwood Museum. There's a meet & greet later at 4:30 if you want to meet these talented artists.

Fresh Philanthropy

Image from FRESHFARM Markets

Mike, Eileen and I headed to the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market this morning. The market has been around since 1997 and they have a wonderful program where, at the end of the day, the farmers donate fresh food to local nonprofits and food kitchens.

Go support your local producer!