infinity and beyond

since moving to new york i have really enjoyed making semi-annual weekend trips to washington DC. it is always so much fun to visit my friend emily there and to experience the art and culture and (most of all) food of another city. i love DC and hope to never stop making these frequent visits.

it's our tradition to eat brunch and beignets at founding farmers, which is so delicious every time. emily and i kicked off our saturday there and then headed to the hirshhorn museum, where we had tickets for the yayoi kusama retrospective. you have probably seen photos of kusama's infinity mirror rooms on instagram. i looooove kusama. if you're unfamiliar, here is her fascinating wikipedia page. she is an 88-year-old japanese artist with an incredibly varied and impressive almost-70-year career. her early work in the abstract expressionist, pop art, and performance art movements was very influential to artists including andy warhol and yoko ono. her more contemporary work uses color and pattern in sculpture and installation pieces that are very joyful, whimsical, and even psychedelic. she has become very well-known for her infinity mirrored rooms that are beautiful and transcendent to experience in person.

yayoi kusama: infinity mirrors is a retrospective of her work and includes six of these infinity rooms. it was probably the most fun art exhibition i have ever attended. i couldn't stop smiling the entire time. i studied kusama in my modern art and feminist art classes at BYU and had wanted to see her work in person for years, so i really savored the experience. you only get about 30 seconds inside the mirror rooms, but stepping inside is unlike anything i've ever experienced. it was such a treat to be there. i love that kusama frequently uses pumpkins as a motif in her works (the pumpkin room is called "all the eternal love i have for the pumpkins" and all the titles of her artworks are really endearing). the use of pumpkins was inspired by her family's farming heritage and i love that because i have a family heritage of pumpkin farming. so cute. the last room of the exhibit is called the "obliteration room" and when you enter you are given a sheet of dot stickers that you can place anywhere you like. the room and its furnishings started out completely white and become obliterated by dots and color. i loved it. if you have a chance to go before the exhibit ends mid-may, do it!

after the hirshhorn, we went to see beauty & the beast at the charming uptown theater. for dinner we ate at medium rare, which is a prix fixe steak and frites restaurant we'd both wanted to try for a while. oh em gee, it was amazing. any place where you eat your giant plate of steak and french fries and they come fill it up with more steak and fries? OKAY BY ME. on sunday, we went to church and then i met up with my new friend melissa for tacos at district taco. that place is so tasty and and it was really fun to make an internet friend a real-life friend. as always, the weekend went by way too fast, but it was pretty much perfect. thanks for the memories, DC! i'm a big fan.

washington weekend

i managed recently to find round trip bus fare to D.C. for $1 (hashtag boltbus VIP), so that meant another trip down to visit my friend emily. we had such a fun weekend. my first order of business was getting a sweet pork salad at cafe rio, but other delicious highlights included thomas sweet ice cream, baked and wired, &pizza, founding farmers (those beignets tho), and bluebuck pancakes at eastern market. my diet starts tomorrow.

i also checked out the library of congress, botanic garden, phillips collection, and hirshhorn museum. all of them are free and pretty great. i was excited at the hirshhorn to see quite a few works i learned about in my feminist art class, including the shirin neshat exhibit and barbara kruger installation. the photo above of the busts is actually "lick and lather" by janine antoni (1993-94), and i was so psyched to see it in person. they are self-portraits made of chocolate and soap and antoni actually licked the chocolate and washed the soap in the bath to wear away the features and comment on femininity and physical appearance. so amazing. i love them.

we went to see everest and pawn sacrifice (i recommend both) and it made me miss when emily and i were roommates and all we did was watch movies together. also she lent me her copy of into thin air by jon krakauer because as soon as we got out of the everest movie i wanted to read it. it's amazing so far.

but my favorite things we did all weekend were definitely visiting the national zoo and riding bikes around at night. i am obsessed with the clouded leopard at the national zoo. it's the prettiest animal i've ever seen and SO CUTE. we rented bikes from the capital bikeshare and rode all around the monuments and the national mall. i hadn't ridden a bike in forever and it was the best. we rode during the day too but nighttime was amazing because the streets and sidewalks were so empty and quiet and the monuments are stunning all lit up. it was so much fun. new york is number one in my heart, but D.C., you are up there. be back soon.

america, the beautiful

this past weekend i took a very pink and patriotic spring break trip to washington, d.c. to see both the cherry blossoms and some friends of mine. my friend emily visited me in new york last month, so this time it was my turn to go see her. it was the perfect escape from new york's dreary weather and it had been almost three years since my last visit to d.c. so i was pretty psyched to be there.

we visited a bunch of the monuments and saw all the beautiful cherry blossoms at the tidal basin. i'd always wanted to see them in bloom and they did not disappoint. it was really hard not to take five million pictures. i also visited the national gallery of art, which i love and recommend, as it has a wonderful collection and surprisingly comfortable couches. if i'd had more time i would've gone to the hirshhorn and the smithsonian american art museum too. bless you, d.c., for your free museums!

i also visited the united states holocaust memorial museum. it was definitely a very moving and powerful experience and brought back the memories and emotions of my visit to the dachau concentration camp in germany. i highly recommend touring the holocaust museum if you get the chance. i think it's an important testament to a piece of history we all should feel more deeply, and maybe the most incredible part is at the end of the exhibition where you can watch videos of holocaust survivors telling their stories. i was so touched by the video of gerda weissmann klein (including her story of how she married the american soldier who liberated her from a concentration camp and 350-mile death march) that i looked her up and read all about her when i got home. she wrote a memoir called all but my life that i will definitely be reading.

we crammed a lot of good food into one weekend, but the highlights were definitely 2 amys neapolitan pizzeria and founding farmers. i am still dreaming about their beignets. i also enjoyed my meals at good stuff eatery, golden brown delicious, and we, the pizza. next time i come to d.c. i want to go to baked and wired, burger tap & shake, eastern market for blue buck pancakes, and of course, cafe rio for a good old sweet pork salad. i love you, food.

another fun part of this weekend was seeing my friend hannah and her husband rob. they drove up and met us to see the cherry blossoms together. we hadn't seen hannah since before she got married, so it was a very happy little reunion. i'm so glad i got to make this trip! i love the east coast and i hope if i write enough of these posts i can convince all my friends to move out here. (if you're reading this, please move out here.) see you soon, d.c.

things to do: washington dc

this summer i really wanted to go to washington dc. i hadn't been in a really long time, so i convinced my dad to go with me and we headed down there one saturday. i'm so glad we did it! it's an easy day trip from new jersey and i had forgotten how much i love that city! i would love to go there more often. here's what we did.

first we headed to the national gallery of art (it's free, like many of the museums in washington). i was in heaven. their collection is amazing, especially the impressionist and post-impressionist pieces, which are my favorite. walking through those galleries is so impressive because you already recognize almost every work!

after wandering those galleries and other galleries of european and american art, we went to the other building of the national gallery, which houses many of the modern and contemporary works. it was also really neat.

after leaving the national gallery, we walked around capitol hill and then we ate lunch. my dad got a burger and i got a milkshake from good stuff eatery. it was gooood. and i got a slice of spinach and artichoke pizza from we, the pizza next door. oh man, it was amazing.

also, isn't my dad cute?

after lunch we headed to the national portrait gallery. it was so interesting! i've never been to another museum like it. it's so unique in that it's an art museum but it's all about people. my favorite things were the amelia earhart exhibit and the gallery of presidential portraits.

it was a long day, so after the portrait gallery we decided to head home. but first, we got some gelato from pitango! it was delicious.

we had a really great time. there are so many things to do in washington dc, and as a museum-lover, i am dying to go back there soon! hope this is helpful for your next dc trip!

up next? things to do: monticello, philadelphia, southern california, and los angeles! be excited.