Blossoming Young Artists

Cherry Blossom Festival

Student art displayed in a conference room for judging. Photo: Natalie Mann

Recently, I was honored to represent the Phillips as a judge of the National Cherry Blossom Festival Youth Art Contest. This year, according to the contest guidelines,  students were asked to address the theme of “treating the blossoms with care and an appreciation of nature.” As one of three judges, I had the pleasure of looking over hundreds of projects created by students from all over D.C., but was also charged with the difficult task of selecting just three finalists from each of four age groups. Now you can cast your vote to help select the overall contest winner on the National Cherry Blossom Festival website or at Union Station. And I strongly encourage you to support these blossoming young artists by checking out the work on display in the Community Art Show at Union Station from April 1–14!

Natalie Mann, School, Outreach, and Family Programs Coordinator

#PhillipsHasPride

Photo of Phillips summer 2012 promotional banners at the museum's Capital Pride Festival booth

Our booth featured banners showing the many reasons that the Phillips is the place to be this summer. Photo: Cecilia Wichmann

As the new marketing intern here at The Phillips Collection, I was recruited to represent our museum at the Capital Pride Festival on June 10. We were there to demonstrate support for GLBT communities and talk about everything going on at the Phillips this summer. We snagged an awesome location right off the main drag. Leading up to the event, we promised Jasper Johns-inspired body paint featuring flags and targets at our booth and within five minutes of being there I realized what a perfect fit this was as requests rolled in for Pride flags in rainbow hues.

We started out neat and organized with flyers prominently displayed on our table, not realizing paint would soon take over. Trying to paint in a timely manner turned into a standing game of Twister as the three of us volunteers reached around each other to get at the next ROYGBIV color. Once we took over the table with paint,  we took flyers to the streets.

Photos of volunteers promoting the Phillips with flyers and body paint at Capital Pride Festival

Photos: Katherine Kunze

I decided to practice painting on myself to get the hang of everything before we opened in the morning. I got a little ambitious . . .  seven hours and hundreds of Pride flags later, I finally finished my masterpiece.

Katherine Kunze, Marketing Intern

Photo of Jasper Johns's Flag II with body painted copy by Katherine Kunze

Photo: Katherine Kunze