Thursday, May 23, 2013
The historic movie theater in Chevy Chase, DC, recently made the switch from showing films via 35-millimeter projectors to screening them via digital projectors.
Chevy Chase neighborhood gem Avalon Theatre (5612 Connecticut Ave. NW, DC) is beloved for its classic look and for its distinction as one of the city's last remaining movie houses from the early 20th century. And, it just received an upgrade that will make watching movies there even more enjoyable: It recently replaced its 35-millimeter film projectors with digital projectors, WTOP reported. The first movie digitally projected in the c. 1923 theater was Star Trek Into Darkness, on May 16, WTOP added. Last fall, the theater announced that its fundraising campaign was complete. The Avalon Legacy Campaign—which started in 2001, after the theater had closed, Patch reported—reached its goal last fall of raising $2 million to restore the theater…
Monday, May 20, 2013
The anthology features the work of nearly 50 local writers.
The work of close to 50 DC-area writers is featured in a new anthology—District Lines—published by well-known Chevy Chase, DC, independent bookstore, Politics & Prose. Printed on Politics & Prose’s very own book-printing machine, District Lines contains essays, short fiction, poems, sketches and photography "on quirky and serious subjects ranging from a sighting of Effi Barry on a Metro bus to an August night on the Q Street Bridge to hotcakes at the Florida Avenue Grill to an ode to the Dupont Circle metro escalator," according to a news statement from the bookstore. Read more about the bookstore's book-printing machine—which can print out a book from a PDF file—on Patch. "We really wanted to capture a sense of people and place in DC and …
Friday, May 17, 2013
Corcoran, Phillips and others to offer free admission or special deals.
A number of local art museums will offer free admission in honor of Art Museum Day (Saturday, May 18), according to The Washington Post. In the District, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Museum of African Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Phillips Collection will offer free admission this Saturday, while the Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens will honor the day on Saturday, June 8, when “Living Artfully” opens. In Maryland, the Baltimore Museum of Art will allow visitors free admission to view its 90,000 works of art on Saturday. Art Museum Day was developed by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) in 2009 to dovetail with the International Museum Day, created by the International Council of Museums …
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Celebrate the summer movie release with some of these local tie-ins.
The Great Gatsby is showing in theaters, and it's inspiring people to delve deeper into the story’s history, culture, music, food and drink. Starting with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grave at St. Mary’s Church in Rockville, there are a number of local places to help you get your Gatsby on, according to The Washington Post. If you venture to Fitzgerald’s gravesite, take note of the epitaph, which reads, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” This quote is the final line in The Great Gatsby. View costumes, set designs, paintings and films from the Gatsby era at the National Gallery of Art’s “Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes” exhibit, which opens May 12. Check out some Art Deco architecture in Silver …
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Bethesda's "Fair Focus" Art Exhibition artist discusses the inspirations behind her work and what her life would be like without paint.
As part of Bethesda’s Art Walk festivities, the “Fair Focus” Art Exhibition was an event for the community to enjoy unique masterpieces by reputable artists from all over the world, including Julia Fernandez-Pol. The Argentinian-American artist grew up looking either under a microscope or through a telescope. Over time, Fernandez-Pol used those same observation techniques to create her paintings. After moving across the country to Los Angeles, Fernandez-Pol is establishing herself on a new coast and her work is just getting started. Bethesda-Chevy Chase Patch: Who is Julia Fernandez-Pol? Julia Fernandez-Pol: I think Julia the artist is allowing my eccentricity to be my important feature. One of the things for me is that I love the …
Monday, May 13, 2013
The Washington National Cathedral will receive a $100,000 grant to help restore the earthquake-damaged vaulted ceiling inside its nave.
The Washington National Cathedral won the 2013 Partners in Preservation contest, securing a $100,000 grant to help restore damage caused by the 2011 earthquake. The cathedral was one of 24 local historic sites competing for grant funding from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express. “I would like to thank the entire Cathedral community, both near and far, who joined in voting for us, resulting in our popular vote win today," Andrew Hullinger, the cathedral’s senior director for finance and administration, said in a press release. "We wouldn’t be the National Cathedral without the support of so many who have come before us, or without those who are part of our community today who want to ensure that the Cathedral …
Just what does a LEED Gold building look like? Take a look.
Buildings typically consume a lot of energy, but they can be designed for reduced energy use. That doesn't mean they have to be ugly, utilitarian buildings—in fact, they can be quite stunning, as these photos of the new science building for the German School of Washington, DC, in Potomac, demonstrate. The building recently received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, according to an announcement from the school. The LEED certification system ranks buildings of a variety of building types according to how environmentally-friendly they were built and how ecologically they function. There are four levels of LEED certification: Platinum, Gold, Silver and a basic …
A huge stump near Potomac Elementary School takes up space. Cut it down? Possibly. But that’s not what Potomac Elementary School parent Donna Petrocella has in mind. Instead of a stump, she sees art.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Take a splash in the Montgomery County Patch Flickr pool—the water's fine!
Picture a mustachioed general, decked out in Patch Green, pointing a long, accusatory finger at you. Yes, you! We want you to join the newly created Montgomery County Patch Flickr pool. For the uninitiated, a pool is just a group of like-minded folks congregating on Flickr, a photo storage website. Signing up is free and joining the pool is even cheaper—click here, or search "Show Us Your Patch of Montgomery County" on Flickr.com. The perks of membership are innumerable. Besides a landing page and cohort of photographers throughout the county—both iPhone and professional—your most awesome photos might even end up on your local Patch website. (With proper credit to you, of course.) There's a bit of fine print, which we'll make extra big…
New York City may have Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night," but Bethesda's got the David van Go-berg one.
New York City's Museum of Modern Art may have Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night, but Bethesda's got the David van Go-berg original. And, van Go-berg's Starry Night is a lot bigger, and may be seen from the street, free-of-charge. The 146-inch-by-96-inch mural is affixed to the side of Union Hardware (7800 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda)—see it around the corner on Norfolk Avenue. Union Hardware co-owner David Goldberg—aka van Go-berg—created the mural out of left-over hardware stock (more than 1,250 door knobs, levers and backplates from Germany, Italy and the U.S.), according to the description at the side of the mural. Goldberg describes his creation as "Post-Door Hardwareism," in homage to van Gogh's Post-Impressionism. Read more about Goldberg…
Natalia Caryl
12:57 pm on Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Author from Bethesda, MD, Christian Caryl about a week ago made a presentation of his new book "Strange Rebels" in Politics and Prose. In July he'll make his book presentation in Barnes & Noble Bethesda. Come and support your local author. His book get best reviews and you could watch an interview with him online. Here is the link: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Caryl If you're interested in … more ›