James McNeill Whistler

We were in DC for a couples of days and me and the boys walked down a couple of miles to the Freer  Gallery to see the Peacock room.  First time for them.  And I was amazed once again at this fabulous work by James Whistler.

The room is now covered with Charles Freer's magnificent collection of pottery, which seems to me to be every bit as fitting as the blue and white of Leyton.  The gold peacocks stare out in their magnificent setting, and at the opposite end of this room is one of the most beautiful pieces of long narrow white pottery I have ever seen.  It is apparently a very very old piece of Chinese work.

When we regretfully left that room we wandered through a lovely exhibit of his early work, with pencil drawings and etchings holding their own next to searingly  beautiful paintings.

The next day we were at Utrecht's and I met a guy who works at the Phillips Collection.  And of course we had to go there.  My favorite Museum I've ever seen.  And it didn't disappoint me, in fact I was shocked at how much better it looked.  Everyone there, Paul Klee, Kandinsky,  Arthur Dove, Augustus Tack and Albert Ryder looked more amazing, more personal than any reproduction I've seen.

And now they have a nice cafe downstairs and we were able to rest there for about a half hour before heading to the guitar store on Connecticut, the only one left in the city.

Now we are home in my clutter of papers and books, endless scraps I find in the house, either delivered by the post office or brought in from the grocery store, and I am humbled in my work, as I am filled with admiration of those painters, especially as I don't think of them as often as I would wish to.

Thank god my wife allows me to fill the tables with all this trash.  I hope to clear it out, if it would only stop arriving.  It comes in on apples, bananas, as envelopes, stamps, loud advertising, sincere pleas for money, as cardboard around books, tags off clothing.  I feel its hold and have to use it all.