Arlington’s “Center” for Modern Art

Posts Tagged ‘Ballston’

Arlington’s “Center” for Modern Art

Washington, D.C. has a number of wonderful galleries, museums stocked with hundreds of classical paintings: Picassos, Renoirs, Van Goghs. What, though, is there to check out if you are looking for art with a much more modern flair?

You would have to leave the city, but you wouldn’t have to go far, just head to North Arlington for a trip to the Arlington Arts Center.

The Arlington Arts Center is a combination gallery, art school and residency program, located in Ballston.

The Center is housed in the Maury School, one of the oldest buildings in Arlington, at the corner of Wilson Boulevard and Monroe Street. The sandy brick building was built in 1910 and has one of the prettier facades in the area. The entrance is framed by a white portico. Windows abound, and the top of the building has matching blue gables on either side. In contrast to the old exterior, a giant swooping pink neon light sits atop the portico.

Every part of the building, from top to bottom, involves an aspect of art. On the first floor there is a rotating gallery, which mostly consists of works from contemporary Mid-Atlantic artists. The second floor houses the residency program, where local artists are given studio space to work. In return, the second floor also has a gallery displaying the recent work from these residents.

Lastly, in the basement of the building, you’ll find classrooms where the Arlington Arts Center offers educational classes for local adults and children.

The first place to check out when you head to the Center is the main exhibit on the first floor. Currently, the exhibit, “On the Road,” is featured and will be showcased until April 3^rd. The exhibition features works from artists leaving the comfort of their studio and heading out into the world. The results are fabulous.

In the Charles E. Smith gallery, which is an open hallway right beyond the entrance, are striking works by Gregory Thielker, who traveled to Norway to complete a series for the exhibition. There Thielker painted small landscapes of a single road in Scandinavia, Gamie Strynfjellsveg. The artist drove the road every day and stopped every couple of kilometers at dusk to paint the highway and its surroundings. The works, done using oil paints on aluminum panels, are haunting images, colored in silvers and faint blues, depicting a desolate, snow-swept world.

Also showcased in the “On the Road” exhibit is a piece by Michael Ruglio-Misurell, entitled “Project Number 10.” It’s a tattered camping tent wedged under a wooden staircase made from inexpensive two-by-fours. The work symbolizes the life of vagrants. The tent is filled with trash, mimicking the possessions of a homeless person. Adding a local slant, all the garbage was collected from the streets of Arlington.

On the second floor, among the artist studios, are presentations of their current work. Among the more impressive pieces is a wood panel painting by Danielle Mysliwiec. In “Untitled,” Mysliwiec uses oil paints, painstakingly and thinly applied, to give the appearance of string. From afar, and even close up, the work appears to be made from an enormous number of tightly-knit strings. It’s only when you get very, very close that you realize the work is crafted from raised paint, left from the gentle stroke of a brush.

In the basement of the Center, work from a recent photography class is on display. The course was offered at a local high school, and students took photos all around their hometown of Arlington. The shots are so impressive, you’d only know it was captured by high schoolers by reading the description.

A trip to the Arlington Arts Center does not require setting aside a whole afternoon or evening. The space is not large, and all the exhibitions can be seen in an hour, making it a nice, brief way to indulge in some art, as well as an excellent opportunity to support the local community.

-David

Ballston’s “sweet” New Spot

There are several different movements going on in the world today, and one local restaurant stands at the forefront of a couple of them.

Combining the best of the sustainable Earth movement and the healthy living push is salad restaurant sweetgreen, and luckily for people in the Arlington area, a new location opened up last month in Ballston.

Sweetgreen began in the D.C. area three years ago, and the Ballston shop is just the seventh restaurant the company operates.

The restaurants eschew pizzazz, instead favoring a sleek, simple design. And the new Ballston location conforms to that mold.

The floor is sealed concrete and ceilings are nonexistent. Instead, sweetgreen leaves pipes and ducts to be exposed, drastically reducing the amount of building materials used.

The space is decorated with bright, reclaimed wood and uses plain energy-conserving fluorescent lights to give the restaurant a bright glow.

And that ethos carries throughout the salad shop. Sweetgreen is environmentally conscious in every element of its eateries. Every utensil and serving dish is 100% biodegradable and almost every ingredient in the store comes from a local source. A large chalkboard next to the register allows hungry patrons the opportunity to see exactly where their food comes from.

The farthest away an ingredient on a recent menu came from was southern New Jersey; and meats, cheeses and vegetables all come from a variety of local farms in the Washington D.C. area. The restaurant refuses to use preservatives, meaning every ingredient is as fresh as possible. That freshness helps create utterly delicious salads.

The restaurant also skips the typically back-of-house preparation for most ingredients, instead Sweetgreen lets its customers see exactly what’s going into their meals. Purchase sweetgreen’s version of a Cobb salad and one can watch as an employee cuts open a fresh avocado and scoops the green flesh directly on to waiting lettuce. Order a Caesar salad and marvel as the person behind the counter shaves fresh parmesan cheese from a large hunk straight on top of leafy Romaine.

All salads are prepared out in the open by friendly employees. And while sweetgreen offers eight suggestions, one can always pick and choose whatever they want in their meal.

After a healthy yet filling meal, sweetgreen offers a tasty, low-fat dessert right in the restaurant: a frozen yogurt bar, replete with numerous unique and different toppings: fresh blackberries coconut shavings, and granola are offered, along with typical staples like sprinkles.

The yogurt, just like everything in the restaurant, is all natural and amazingly good. And it leaves a patron feeling fantastic. Not just for having had a delicious meal, but for doing it with as minimal a carbon footprint as possible.

- David

Community Video: Ballston, Arlington, VA

Seated along the Metrorail’s Orange Line, the Ballston neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia has a terrific mix of luxury condos and apartments, along with townhouses and single family homes. Learn more about Ballston and why it’s the perfect blend of business and entertainment.