Bird Lady of Adams Morgan - a memory collage

In a recent reminiscence with family, I shared the story of the Bird Lady of Adams Morgan. I lived in Washington, DC for a decade.  In 1983, we lived in the Adams Morgan area at 16th & Columbia Road, in the Park Plaza apartments, which are still there, but now as trendy condominiums. Adams Morgan, very hip now,  was then a vibrant, but rather funky area; with a plethora of Ethiopian restaurants and ethnic foods of all types.  My metaphysical bookstore, Synchronicity Bookshop, was at 18th and Wyoming. with a pre-school right across the street.

Along our usual walk home, we often stopped in a small pocket-park on Columbia Road and regularly saw the Bird Lady.  She stood tall and regal and fed the pigeons copious amount of Wonder Bread. She had decorated her dress with empty Wonder Bread wrappers, attached with safety pins. In the winter she had an equally adorned long coat.  She rarely spoke to anyone and did not ask for money.  

My young four year old was quite attracted to her and established a rapport with her. One day I was asked for a quarter to give to the Bird Lady for bread and that became our tradition whenever we came across her. Never more than a quarter, because she said it would be too much.

There are no photos of the actual Bird Lady, only a salute to her in this constructed memory collage.

Bird Lady of Adams Morgan

For Alexander.

Till next time.

You go girls! Saturday January 21, 2017

Neon Boneyard!

I love signage - vintage, retro and neon!  I've only been in the Las Vegas airport, but I would go to Vegas just to go to the Neon Boneyard - which at one time was just that - a junkyard for discarded neon signs. But people found out about and traveled out there and in 2012, it opened as The Neon Museum, and now has a collection of restored signs, to be 'viewed as public art'.   Many of these signs used bulbs rather than the tubes most associated  with neon [which is the gas that makes the color and the glow] and I don't know if the bulbs had neon in them.   In any event, photos of these treasures just float my boat and speak to my love of retro imagery.

I've actually been fortunate enough to have owned some neon, but alas can't find any photos.  I once had a huge outline of a chinese pagoda in yellow.  We installed it at the top of the windows in our studio.  We lived on a rural road, but several times people came up our driveway at night, looking for the restaurant.

When I owned Synchronicity Bookshop in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC., we had a neon piece made of our symbol for synchronicity.  It was quite large and fuschia, like the image, but of course, neon!

I was also given as a gift my very own neon letter E!  And right now I have in my yard a leftover metal E that once had bulbs in it.

So my recent happy collage inspired by the Neon Boneyard is Last Call at the Chinese Garden Cafe. The Cafe sign is in the Boneyard.  The Eat sign and neon A and & are my additions to the collage. 

Last Call at the Chinese Garden Cafe