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| The National Museum of Women in the Arts, the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists. |
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| NMWA was incorporated in November 1981 as a private, non-profit museum. For its first five years, NMWA operated from temporary offices with docent-led tours of the collection at the Holladay residence. Special exhibitions also were presented. In 1983 the museum purchased a 78,810-square-foot Washington landmark near the White House, formerly a Masonic Temple, and refurbished it in accordance with the highest design, museum, and security standards, winning numerous architectural awards. In the spring of 1987, NMWA opened its permanent location with the inaugural exhibition American Women Artists, 1830-1930. One of the country's foremost feminist art historians, Dr. Eleanor Tufts, was curator for the show, a definitive survey of the first century of work produced by America's women artists. To underscore the museum's commitment to increased attention for women in all disciplines, NMWA commissioned Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich to write Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra for an opening concert, performed by two women pianists and the National Symphony Orchestra. The Washington Post music critic applauded the piece, which was inspired by five paintings from NMWA's permanent collection, calling it "a 20th-century Pictures At An Exhibition." |
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| Small Secrets We shared our small secrets in soft whispers under the blankets at night. Remember that? Remember how we howled like wolves at the moon outside the window and we said we would never stop being friends. We would never get married. We would always sleep in our special way when we got our own house in California. When we were grown up. You wanted to be a dentist and I wanted to be a hygienist. I thought I did, anyway. I would have bent my future around yours if you'd wanted to be a garbage collector. I would have said that's what I wanted to be too. You had beautiful hair, I remember that too. I still know the feel of it against my cheek because I preferred it to the pillowslip and you always left it spread out behind you when you spooned into me after midnight came and went. Your hair was almost red. Really it was orange but you didn't want orange hair so we called it "almost red" as though that were a patented Clairol color. I had beautiful hair too, but black like a bird. Remember the time we lay on our backs side by side and you braided our long hair together? Almost red and bird black wrapped over and over until our heads were bound together. That was the night we... well, you know. Remember that? Remember how, after you had bound our hair together, we laughed and struggled against each other? We hissed and cackled like spitting cats, spirited and taken by the thrill of the strange game. The only thing I don't remember is who kissed who. Who was the first to squash their lips against the other's, the first to press a warm tongue past teeth and push against the other's tongue? I can't remember that. But, boy, I sure do remember what happened after. I remember clear as day how we kissed forever after that, licked and ate each other's mouths until our bound hair came undone but we didn't. You asked me to kiss your neck and I did. I pulled your hands up from your sides and placed them on my shoulders. I brushed your orange hair off your chest where the wilted braid lay and slid your little pajama strap down. Your hips moved against my thighs, which were set against you on either side. I whispered, do you like this? And you nodded, remember? You nodded and bit your lower lip and said "I want to be your boyfriend." Like Todd was Serrie's boyfriend? I asked. Serrie was the first girl in our class to push the forbidden boundaries of the physical swell that was building inside all our teenaged bodies. We all knew about it because it happened at someone's birthday dance party while Todd's friends watched for parents outside the door. The stark heated fact of their "sexual intercourse" spread through our ears like a communicable infection and everyone knew they'd done it by the end of the next day. Like that? I asked and laughed strangely. Yes, you said and you laughed too and you pushed me off you and threw me down on my back. I want to be your boyfriend and make love to you and marry you one day and move to California. Then you'll be my husband, I tittered as you yanked at the legs of my sweatpants. And you'll be my wife, you answered. Remember that? How you wanted to marry me and be my husband. God, we were so funny. Queer kids. You told me once about a movie you'd seen in your brother's VCR. When you put it in, you learned everything you'd ever need to know about sex. And you told me all you knew. You announced in the semi-dark, crouched above me, that you would show me something called "head". And then you pushed my knees apart and put your mouth between my legs. You weren't very good at it, no offense, but it was a new sensation for both of us and pretty fucking great too. I shuddered but not with revulsion and you kept kissing me down there and even started to lick up and down. Do I taste weird? I asked the darkness above me. No, was your muffled reply. Want to try? Yes, I said. I want to try it too. So you climbed over me and lifted your nightie up past your bum. You lowered yourself into my face then, and I thought I would just about die from the feeling. Your tongue went back to swishing all around me and I tried to mimic your movements down there. Soon our hips were moving in time, time, time for long, spread, soft, liquid licks and I never felt so relaxed and excited at the same time. My heart was racing and my skin felt too tight all over. Then that's when it happened. Something swelled inside me and a hot flush of pure pleasure rushed through my legs and belly. I didn't make a sound. I stopped breathing until it was over. You got off me and lay on top of me. That's called coming, you said, and kissed me on the mouth. And it means you're my girlfriend now. Do you remember all that? Do you remember it as well as I do? I sometimes wonder if I made up parts of it, if it could really have been like that. Of course, we never got married. We never even stayed friends all that long, and we never talked again after I went to prom with Alistair Smith and you threw an egg on his car while we were inside dancing. He didn't know who'd done it, but I knew. You were always a spiteful kind of girl, when you didn't get what you want. Anyway, I know it must have happened because I spent most of my life after that, thinking about it in the dark. Remembering you and your lessons. Remembering our small secrets and all those muffled promises. And now whenever I see young girls whispering, and laughing, and running… I blush and remember you. I wonder if they've discovered our secret. |