Franciscan Monastery

In NE Washington, there's a Franciscan Monastery with a beautiful garden.  The inspiration for the building and garden struck over 100 years ago and the site now has a beautiful cathedral and replicas of holy sites from Jerusalem and around the world.  I'm not Catholic, so a friend who is guided me around the site with stories about why different memorials and grottos were there.

In preparation for the upcoming 202 Arts & Music Festival, I painted there this week and refined the  painting a bit in my studio today.

Studio work on a Montana Poppy Painting

I am back in the studio today after painting outside all week for the 202: Create Arts & Music Festival.  After painting at Tudor House this morning, which was beautiful!, it was almost a relief to be out of the sun and breeze.

I'd started this painting of poppies and field in Montana in June.  I shipped the unfinished painting back to my studio and today I got to work on it again.

I was painting in a sad state of disbelief that a friend who'd been ill for as long as I'd known her passed away this morning.  My friend had, during many days she'd spent in bed (when she wasn't running marathons or dancing in spike heels!), looked up at a painting I'd done of sunflowers that she'd hung in her bedroom.  She used to tell me that it always gave her something joyful to look at when she wasn't feeling well.  It takes my breath away to think about that.  So I focused on reliving what it felt to stand in a field with poppies this summer. looking off to mountains in the distance.

Howard Theater, Franciscan Monastery

Continuing my adventures painting around DC this week, I went yesterday to the Franciscan Monastery to paint in the garden there.  Today, I joined other arts festival participants at the Howard Theater.  All the week's paintings will be for sale on Saturday.  Great fun painting and talking to people all over the city this week!

LeDroit Park Plein Air Painting

I'm participating in the 202 Arts & Music Festival in DC this week, which will culminate in a day-long music and art fest down by the waterfront at 4th & M on Saturday, Sept 9.  During the week, plein air painters will be working around the city on art that will be displayed in a tent, for sale, at the festival.

Scouting painting locations led me to LeDroit Park, a historic DC neighborhood where beautiful row houses were built between Howard University, the MacMillan Reservoir, and the busy Florida/Rhode Island Avenue commercial area.   We set up at Anna J. Cooper Circle, a pretty tree-shaded space named to honor an African-American feminist who was born into slavery and graduated from Oberlin College.  Her story and that of others who lived in LeDroit Park are told on a heritage trail with signs thoughout the neighborhood.

I painted row houses this morning.