WNC State Seals

Another of the intriguing accents at Washington's National Cathedral are the State seals arrayed in the narthex floor. Again, as the previous post bemoans, if this detail of the property has any official or otherwise serious documentation it certainly isn't available in WNC's own bookstore and I haven't unearthed any of it anywhere online - not even on Flickr and those shutterbugs don't miss much. WNC itself may not regard these seals as anything particularly special since the past few times I've visited half of them were covered by large carpet mats which I had to peel back to get these shots.

The seals are about the size of a dinner plate. They're fashioned out of white and black stone, marble I'd guess. My selection focused on those with agrarian motifs - New York gets a pass since it's my state - and since to me Ohio most sublimely exemplifies this group it got the honor of being the post header. Next in line are:

But the pièce de résistance and head scratcher of the whole lot is the seal of Oklahoma because it alone has a reversed color scheme with white laid in a black ground. Why? Exactly! That is the question. No leads to date but welcome the answer if you know it.

WNC kneelers

John James Audubon

Among the many exquisite and intriguing works housed in Washington's National Cathedral are various textile decorations embroidered by volunteer docents. Among my favorite examples are the kneelers in St. John's Chapel commemorating notable persons from American history however attempts to find good pictorial documentation of them have eluded me. WNC's gift store offers books about the cathedral's architecture and landscape but nothing of all the decorative and ornamental works populating all its ells, rooms, halls, stairwells, nooks and niches. In lieu of that I'm presenting here a selection of kneelers.

Interior shots of the cathedral abound on Flickr but tend to be focused on stained glass and alters and not so much on the ornamental details crying for their own comprehensive catalog. 

The designs sampled in this post are among over 100 such embroidered textiles each approximately 14" x 10" and upholstering the cushion surmounting a short stool provided to kneel upon in the chapel. Each kneeler is tethered to a straight backed wood chair, not to pews.

Emily Dickinson

Herman Melville

  

Edgar Allan Poe

Francis Parkman

George Rogers Clark

James Fenimore Cooper

                                              

 

Texas

Willa Cather

Winslow Homer

Merci Colonel Flynn

This is it folks, the genuine confluence of time and place. Merci Colonel Flynn, a curious article of post-WWII ephemera dating from 1948 when the American military persona assumed a level of reverence that, if not embosomed in real life French citizens, certainly seems exalted in the winsome, sapphire eyes of the dutiful nurse gracing this dust jacket. But a mild examination past the veneer of our heroine’s pliant gratitude points toward possible crisis partly suggested by the jutting chin, a porcelain-cum-bruised look to her cheek and maybe not a winsome, but wincing look behind her mascara smudges. Gratitude never looked so sneering. We can’t see Flynn’s hands; it's doubtful Berlin was the only post-war locus of homespun, mercantilism between G.I.’s and young local women manacled to desperation whose bombed out cities left them with literally nothing but the shirts – or starched white uniforms in some special cases – on (or off) their backs to ply a living. But to remain optimistic we can assume our gal, maybe among many, does thank Col. Flynn. Is he to blame if he looks used to it? Maybe things were different in what the facing page informs as le titre americain est: Air Surgeon.

Furthering time and place details, I found this volume in a Gautier (Casablanca) used bookstore. The alternating color lettering of the spine caught my eye since my own correspondence to a stateside gal had been decorated with this stylized PAR AVION  motif. I can only wonder how long this book sat on that shelf and when and how it made it's way to Morocco from France, life-story details that may even have surpassed the excitement between the covers!