Very small -- I worked through the summer of '85. I had graduated high school, and I seem to recall not making it down to the Mall very often that year. '81 & '82 were my prime years there.
But yes, "To Fly" was an imprinting experience for me -- I'm pretty sure I first saw it in the late '70s, while still in elementary school. Haunted my flying dreams for years, that did. It took me a long time to appreciate the art in the East Wing, but I kept going back there for that main gallery and its gigantic Calder -- far more often than I did the Hirshhorn. The West Wing was more to my taste, and the Freer-Sackler even more so. But my favorite undiscovered gem on the Mall was the Botanical Gardens, between Air & Space and the Capitol -- all those different habitats, with very few visitors (outside of poinsettia season).
I never had a revelatory experience about that topic -- it just sort of seeped into my consciousness over years of schooling, tho' my AP American History teacher helped pound the idea in. Possibly the most important lessons in it, though, were David McCauley's books.
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Date: 17 September 2012 03:07 pm (UTC)But yes, "To Fly" was an imprinting experience for me -- I'm pretty sure I first saw it in the late '70s, while still in elementary school. Haunted my flying dreams for years, that did. It took me a long time to appreciate the art in the East Wing, but I kept going back there for that main gallery and its gigantic Calder -- far more often than I did the Hirshhorn. The West Wing was more to my taste, and the Freer-Sackler even more so. But my favorite undiscovered gem on the Mall was the Botanical Gardens, between Air & Space and the Capitol -- all those different habitats, with very few visitors (outside of poinsettia season).
I never had a revelatory experience about that topic -- it just sort of seeped into my consciousness over years of schooling, tho' my AP American History teacher helped pound the idea in. Possibly the most important lessons in it, though, were David McCauley's books.
---L.