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afternoon on the mall

After our screening of Breach on Sunday, we headed into town for an afternoon on the Mall. Our first stop: the National Gallery. For whatever reason, none of the exhibits really appealed to me that day. I did, however, have a wonderful time in the downstairs gift shop / bookstore, where I found an interesting book about pictograms, iconography and signage (featuring several great examples from Germany and Switzerland).

Afterwards, we walked across the mall to the National Museum of the American Indian — my first visit to this particular museum. The walk over was rather treacherous; I was surprised that no one had done anything to clear the snow and ice-covered sidewalks along Fourth Street. And about halfway to our destination, a snowstorm blew in.

At NMAI, our first stop was the (surprisingly impressive) museum cafe, where we could warm up with some hot soup and observe how the tourists outside were dealing with the snow.

Then we hit the exhibits. I’m a big fan of Native American artwork from the Pacific Northwest — I’ve seen some beautiful work on my visits to Vancouver — and I was happy to see some examples here. (Last year, the museum hosted a large exhibit of art from that region; I was disappointed to have missed it.)

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