Expedition 5: Our Second Virginia Voyage

At the Torpedo Factory

Another journey in the books! Metro Journey number five took us through Alexandria in Virginia, and brought us to places with some awe-inspiring art, and fascinating facts. This blog is your ride through a rainy day in the Old Dominion State. All aboard!

Station 1: A Torpedo Factory and Some Articulate Artists
Another early morning wake up! I was up and ready to go before 8:00, and Trent, Cortland and I rode to the King Street station in Alexandria. We met up with our group and hopped on the bus to get to our first destination (not in D.C., maybe the title is misleading :D) , the Torpedo Factory. 

The group outside the Factory

It's an art center with amazing collections of paintings, pictures, jewelry, sculptures, archaeology, UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHERS, and a plethora more of masterpieces. It was named for its original purpose, which was for assembling torpedoes in World War 2. The Factory was made in mid 1941, but it evolved into an art center afterwards in the 1970's.

YEEEEHAH! RIDE THAT TORPEDO, MAN!

 Now, it hosts almost 150 artists, all of whom with unique styles to their works, and 82 studios. We were assigned to interrogate (just kidding, interview) 4 artists (each with a uniquely different trade), an African American artist, and one nicknamed "Poppi." After quite a wet walk to the Factory, we meandered around for a bit, checking out the first floor.

Posing in front of one of the torpedoes

 There were a lot of pictures of sailors and posters from the 1940's on one wall, not to mention several torpedoes. We got going upstairs to check out the studios, and after peeking into a few, we entered a photographer's studio, and began to inquire on his career at the Factory. His name was James Steele, and his passion was clearly photography. He fell in love with the art when he was 12, but pursued engineering in college, working in that business for 20 years. He returned to photography after that, joining the Torpedo Factory. We talked with him for quite a while, as he had some pretty cool stories to tell and well-refined pictures to show us. He'd taken hundreds of thousands of photos with his D100E 35mp camera (that's a really good camera); he would just take pictures at random of anything that fascinated him. It was kinda crazy how much work went into his craft, too. He'd been to Utah, overseas, and even underwater to make his collections, and it was an eye-opening experience.
Next, we browsed around and entered the studio of Judith Codey, who worked with wood prints. I didn't take as many notes as possible here, but her works were like paintings on wood. She showed us about half a dozen of her favorite projects, and demonstrated how she'd put down layers of different colors to make her pictures as fine as possible. She's worked at the Torpedo Factory for 40 years, nearly as long as its existence. I enjoyed seeing her displays for sure. Our next artist we interviewed briefly was Mrs. Marian van Iandigham. She worked with paintings, and had been at the Factory since 1974. 
We had a few more things to do in the Factory, and next up was finding an African American artist to interview. Unfortunately, there weren't any permanent members there at the time, and since our final artist, Poppi, wasn't there yet either, the group elected on heading to our next destination. On to station 2!

Station 2: Quite a Watery Waterfront, and a Freedom Museum
We were HUNGRY (or maybe it was just me, I had a small breakfast), but we wanted to knock out our POI's first, so we set out on a 25 minute trek in the rain to the Alexandria Waterfront Park. It was a nice park on the edge of the Potomac River. A freaky view of the foggy river (hence Foggy Bottom) and a group photo later, we began to make our way to our final destination.
Our final assignment was to visit the Freedom House Museum.

The display at the Freedom House Museum

 It had the most historical background of our POI's, as it was a slave trade hub where Solomon Northrup from the movie Twelve Years a Slave was sold into slavery in 1841. He was a free man who lived in New York, and when he was approached in a business offer by two white men, he accepted. Sadly, the men kidnapped him and sold him in a slave state. Northrup regained his freedom in 1853 and wrote the book Twelve Years a Slave. After another long walk to the Museum, we entered, and were greeted by Ms. Chatman. We explained how our class worked, and she individually shook our hands and proceeded to tell us about the slave trade that went through Freedom House. Back then it was one of the finest places to buy slaves back then, and the wealthiest men in the country would gather and haggle over who they wanted and whatnot. The actual museum was in the basement of the building, so Ms. Chatman showed us down there and left us to explore and take pictures. It was a very interesting exhibit with examples of what the slaves wore, mock posters from then, a small model of what the actual Freedom House looked like, and even a touch screen display with some detailed information. Once we finished observing, we went back upstairs to thank Ms. Chatman.

Alright, almost done, stay with me. By the time we were finished at Freedom House, it was around 1:00, and we had one more assignment back at the Torpedo Factory. The group still had to interview the artist "Poppi," who hadn't been there in the morning. Another rainy walk later, we hustled over to studio 226 to find Poppi. Sadly, she wasn't in that day though, but we got plenty of information about her art and career at the factory. Her actual name was Dawn Benedetto, and she worked with elegant beads and inexpensive jewelry. Honestly it looked like stuff we'd found back at Bedazzled (remember the "bedazzling business?"). She's worked at the Torpedo Factory since 1997 and clearly was one of their more upstanding artists.

Some of the beads crafted by Poppi

 











And that was about it for the day! Metro Journey 5 gave us all an insight to what Alexandria is like, and once again showed us the many understated landmarks you can find in this area. Stay tuned for MJ #6! Until next time, dear reader!

Art

ART

ARRRRRRRRRRT :)

And...art. I loved the place, though!