Lessons from History and Nature

Up-cycled Smithsonian Engagement Calendar  Pandemic sketchbook 2022 week 22 

Nautical Mailbox Post Pen & ink, watercolor By Meera Rao 

I did not realize how much pleasure I would get revisiting my up-cycled Smithsonian Engagement Calendar and being reminded about how our days and weeks were spent noticing little things around us. I was always looking for new places then to do our daily walks for a change in routine. The experience and novelty of that has continued through and we still have not rejoined the gym but walk on various trails. I noticed this nautical themed mail post and many others like this walking around our little town by the water. It made the postal theme with the photo of the week from the calendar: Schermack stamp vending machine c. 1955 now on exhibit at the National Postal Museum in DC.  The coincidences of what was in the photo of the week matching with at least one of incidences from my week was always a fun project to check ! 

Orchid Bloom Pen &ink and water color by Meera Rao 

Up-cycled Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic sketchbook 2021 Week 22

 

We have a couple of orchid plants that are gifts given to us a few years ago. They still bloom almost every year but I can’t seem to figure out their cycle. I remember going on search on the web trying to figure out the cycle when I saw that it finally bloomed during week 22 in 2021.  The note I made on the calendar says that orchids  ‘symbolize the bravery of Harry and Harriette Moore - pictured on the locket shown in facing page. ‘On Christmas night 1951, Ku Klux Klan members bombed the home of Florida NAACP leaders  Harry T and Harriette Moore, killing them both. The Moores were the first NAACP members to be murdered for their civil rights activism. The locket shown belonging to Harriette, features photographs of the couple when they were young.’  Their daughter,  grandson and great-grandson donated the locket to National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC.  It was sobering to see it in person later when we visited the museum. 

Desperately Seeking

Desperately seeking nesting place !  Sketch by Meera Rao 

On Feb 27th,  at a parkinglot, saw a bird check out the tailpipe of a car while its mate(?)was following faithfully.  Just a second or two and then they were gone !! There was no time to take a pic but  my Strathmore 400 series Toned gray paper sketchbook in hand - memory still fresh and the car still parked, I quickly sketched it using a bic ballpoint pen with multicolors in ink and a white pastelpencil. I had just enough time to record what I saw :) Later I discovered the internet has many stories of birds nesting in tailpipes if the car had not been moved a while during spring !!!

Awesome Nature

                                                                                    

Hi-Yu ( Abundance) Pen and Ink /watercolor By Meera Rao

I had a few holes here and there in both of my 2021 and 2022 Journals - a few weeks that I was unable to sketch for some reason or other.  I felt I should fill them up, complete the recording and then start posting - a bit unreasonable on my part but then sometimes that's how I move unfortunately. I relied on my photos to jog my memory. Now that I have filled in every single week in both the journals, hope the posting will be be easier on my psyche - even if its two and three year delayed. 

week 21 Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic Journal 2021 

The photo on the Smithsonian Engagement calendar which I had upcycled as my Covid diary / journal has Hi Yu Apples crate label, from Wenatchee, WA now in the collection of National Museum of the American Indian, The label is done in Ink on paper.  

"Before they were replaced by the cardboard boxes in the 1960s wooden boxes bearing colorful designs were used to ship fruit and vegetables. Often the designs featured Native American motifs. HI-Yu the Chinook language words meaning abundance was the name of a brand of apples shipped from Wenatchee, WA." True the word for the week, in our garden on that week the blueberries and blackberries were in abundance ! We did not get to enjoy them because the birds were having feast  and we weren't invited :) 

Week 21 Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic Journal 2022 

This week's photo in the Smithsonian Engagement calendar 2022 is "Niimiipuu(Nez Perce) quiver and bow case c.1890 Idaho. It is made from otter skin and fur, hide wool cloth, muslin, glass beads and silk ribbon and is in the National museum of the American Indian.  

On May 17 2022, I had gone to check the trees I had planed to sketch for a Tree sketching Class I had volunteered to teach later in the month at the Historical Endview at Newport News, Va. As I was walking around the property I saw a snake skin under one of the bushes. Upon further research, I learned that snakes shed a layer of their skin in on continuous piece, a process called 'ecdysis'  which occurs between four and twelve times a year. Why? While snakes body continues to grow, the skin does not! How cool is that !

Snake skin on forest floor  watercolors by Meera Rao.  

Recording Memories

Me And First Born Pen and ink by Meera Rao

Sometimes I wonder what’s the point of sketching and then recording it in the blog.  Doing the covid diaries, I have recorded moments that looking back now, I could have easily forgotten and dug up memories that brought me joy. Now publishing in the blog after two and three years later brings some amazement to me!   This was a memory from years ago and yet now fresh - and refreshed again ! 

Week 20 Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic journal 2021 

The photo in the Smithsonian Engagement calendar 2021, upcycled to pandemic diary/journal 2nd year in a row, is by Elinor Cahn: East Baltimore Documentary Survey Project c.1975Gelatin silver print Smithsonian American Art Museum.  Cahn was one of the several photographers involved in the National Endowment for the Arts 1978 East Baltimore Documentary Survey Project, which aimed to capture the realities of life in a multiethnic community. 

Week 20 Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic journal 2022

 My sketch for this week is of the mural Pool House Blues by Anickan Udofias at the William H  Ramsey Aquatic center by the Eastern Market at DC.  I have learned a lot about various artists and history, science, archeology etc. through the photographs in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar and also by the art I saw in and around various places I visited during those days.  The poster shown in the calendar photograph is for Richard Norman’s 1922 movie.  The movie featured “Bill Pickett(1870-1932), a famous cowboy and a rodeo performer of African and Native American descent.  Pickett created the technique of bulldogging( also known as steer wrestling) featured in the film. The film itself is presumed lost, as only fragments have been found”. 

Sketch of the mural ‘Pool House Blues by Anickan Udofias’

Sketch by Meera Rao 

Birdbath Adventures

Birdbath Silhouette photography by Meera Rao

We had to take down our birdfeeders a few years ago. During Covid pandemic stay home days we installed a simple bird bath, It has given us so much pleasure ! Some birds fly in and out taking quick sips of water.  Red winged black birds love to dip and shake vigorously. Mourning doves like to linger in small groups. Chickadees and Cardinals are always busy and don't stay long. This year January has been very cold and the water often freezes. I started to heat water indoors in my kitchen and then pour hot water to loosen and thaw the frozen water. I then check to make sure water is not hot. Usually in a matter of minutes the birds seem to notice and happily visit to sip! This photo was taken the first time I did it this year when the I saw the steam rising and a silhouetted bird against the early light from the sunrise.

Its a fine morning

oh the glorious sunrise

and water for birds

~haiku by Meera Rao~

Manholes and Memories

Smithsonian Emgagement Calendar sketching the pandemic 2021 week 19 May 2-8 

Manhole Mandalas photocopy of miniature paintings from  accordion album sketchbook

The wonderful side benefit of very late postings from my 2nd and 3rd year of sketching the pandemic days is that it reminds me things I have done and places I have visited that I almost have forgotten about !!  That weekend 2021 I was inspired to pull together different manhole covers from places I had visited ( yes, I notice interesting manhole covers wherever I visit !) I sketched and painted about 20 in a mini Japanese accordion sketchbook.   I photocopied one side and put it in my Smithsonian Engagement Calendar up-cycled to my sketchbook ! Uncannily, it paired  well with Alexandra Agudelo’s ‘Molly bowl’. The bowl embodies her ‘use of pre Colombian metal working techniques of batado in which a sheet of silver is placed between two hard surfaces and struck with a hammer in order to manipulate the material without welding’. For her ‘They evoke vessels used in ancestral rituals.’ 

National Museum of the Marine corps ink and watercolor  2022 week May 1-7 

In 2022, on May 2nd we visited the National Museum of Marine corps in Quantico, Va. We pass it all the time on our trips to and back from Washington DC but never did take that exit. The magnificent building evokes the scene of soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima. An exhibition of 50 huge and absolutely stunning watercolors by the artist Mary Whyte of ‘We the people:Portraits of Veterans in America’ drew us to finally take the exit from the highway.  It was a memorable exhibit by an artist I had always admired. 

Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic year 2022 sketchbook 

The painting the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar is by Elmer Wachtel of California spring landscape c. 1920. 

Conservation, Traditons And Imagination

Smithsonian Engagement Calendar week 18 2021, April 25-May 1

Up a tree  pen &ink and watercolor by Meera Rao

When your grandchild climbs trees and has special adventures the same week that 'the Panda on a tree' photo  (by Conner Mallon 2019) is in my upcycled Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2021, - where I had been  chronicling  the second year of pandemic memories  - its a special feeling :)  As cute as the panda is, it is clear who in my eyes is the cuter one.  The panda was at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and Conservation Biology Institute - on loan from China- as an ambassador for conservation. 

At the Hirshhorn Museum Yayoi Kasuma exhibit ink and watercolor.by Meera Rao 

Smithsonian Engagement Calendar week 18 2022, April 24- May 3

A year later, as seen in my sketch for the same week 18 in my third year of sketching the pandemic year memories -in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2022, we were still wearing the masks when in crowded interiors even after having vaccinated and boosted !  The Kasuma exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC was psychedelic with colors, dots, lights and mirrors!  

The photo for week 18 in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2022 is of a piece by Jiyoung Chun's Joomechi art  "Whisper Romance_His Tear'" :  "Joomechi is a unique Korean traditional handmade paper technique that uses only hanji (Korean Mulberry paper),water and the artists hands. It creates  strong, textural surfaces that sometimes appear printed. This work is about the love God showed humans by sacrificing his only son on the cross."  

Both artists reach into their imagination to produce unique works! And I keep dipping into all the sketches and paintings that are tucked in my sketchbooks, and studio :) 

Doing Our Part

Black Gold  ink and watercolor by Meera Rao

Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Week 17 2022

The COP28 going on in UAE has been in the news these past few days and it is by chance that my long delayed posts on earth day found an opportune time to see the light of the day! We do try to practice 'reduce, reuse and recycle'  as the playful illustration in the commemorative poster in poster for Earth Day in New York  April 22 1990 shows. My husband is always very proud and happy to use the 'black gold' from our compost bin in our garden. All the vegetable and plant waste from my kitchen and garden go to the bin to be composted-

 something we have done for many years now.  Serendipitously it  was also the week a batch was ready for the garden and I was happy to record it in my upcycled sketchbook : the Smithsonian Engagement calendar that became my covid diary !

The caption for the calendar photo credits Seymore Chwast for the poster which is now housed in Cooper Hewitt Design Museum.   Inscribed in her tablet are the words "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" 

Iris Blooming  pen & ink  and watercolor by Meera Rao 

Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Week 17 2021

Last week for the first time we went into the Ripley Building of the Smithsonian Museums and saw a print of the painting of Julie E Packard by Hope Gangloff hanging in the hallway.  I recognized the painting from using the 'Smithsonian engagement Calendar 2021' as my upcycled covid diary :) It reminded me that I was behind in my blogging and posting even though I have been busy painting and sketching regularly. 

 The write up in the calendar notes :" Julie Packard (b 1952) has dedicated her career to preserving ocean life. In 1984, she helped found the world -renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium."  This portrait is hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.  

End of Something is the Beginning of Something Else

 

Ganesha  Mixed Media by Meera Rao

Ganesha  Mixed Media 2x2x3/4" by Meera Rao

I have been experimenting with using empty mint boxes, used up metro cards etc…in my art explorations.  Here I upcycled an empty Trader Joe's mint box into a travel altar with the image of God Ganesha using watercolor, color pens, washi tape(for the sides). The challenge was to draw a 2x2" miniature Ganesha to fit in the box and that required a few tries! In the end it was a wonderful feeling to recycle the box into a meaningful work of art. As I was starting the project, I was reminded of a quote by Fred Rogers of Children's  Educational TV shows : 

"Often when you think you are at the end of something,

You are at the beginning of something else " 

VWS Signature Membership

The blog anniversary came around again on the 17th of this month - An anniversary almost forgotten. I am thankful for 16 years of blogging. But unfortunately, this year has not been conducive for posting due to sundry reasons. Meanwhile the big news is that I was awarded the signature membership to Virginia Watercolor society at the VWS Annual show in Williamsburg Contemporary Art Center. 

I ponder, draw, paint

brush color on wet paper

and a lily blooms

~Meera Rao~