Lise Howe, Assoc. Broker and Attorney Licensed in DC, MD, VA,Coldwell Banker

The National Gallery of Art was created in 1937 by a joint resolution of Congress, accepting the gift of financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon. During the 1920s, Mr. Mellon began collecting with the intention of forming a public gallery of art in Washington. In 1937, the year of his death, he promised his collection to the United States. On March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the museum, then housed in the newly built building (now the West Wing) and the collections on behalf of the people of the United States of America.

The paintings and works of sculpture given by Andrew Mellon have formed a nucleus of high quality around which the collections have grown. Mr. Mellon's gift to the country attracted gifts from other collectors in the form of major donations of art from Samuel H. Kress, Rush H. Kress, Joseph Widener, Chester Dale, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, and Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch as well as individual gifts from hundreds of other donors.

The Gallery's East Building, designed by I.M.Pei and located on land set aside in the original Congressional resolution, was opened in 1978. It accommodates the Gallery's growing collections and expanded exhibition schedule and houses an advanced research center, administrative offices, library, and a collection of drawings and prints. That building was accepted for the nation on June 1, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter. Funds for construction were given by Paul Mellon and the late Ailsa Mellon Bruce, the son and daughter of the founder, and by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

On May 23, 1999 the Gallery opened an outdoor sculpture garden designed to offer year-round enjoyment to the public. Located in the 6.1-acre block adjacent to the West Building at 7th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., the garden provides an informal, yet elegant setting for works of modern and contemporary sculpture.

The National Gallery offers wonderful events in addition to its spectacular collections of art and temporary exhibitions. It presents movies about art related topics, concerts, and lectures. The restaurants and cafeterias at the National Gallery make a great place to grab lunch, a cup of coffee or brunch.

This Sunday the National Gallery is hosting a lecture by Carl Brandon Strehlke, an expert on Italian art from 1300 to 1550 on Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), American art historian and connoisseur. In 1895, Berenson published a long-awaited monograph on Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto; it was Berenson's first statement about the then relatively new science of connoisseurship. Later Berenson said that since writing that book, in which he had tried to regulate every knowable mood of an artist, he had almost never again "taken creative interest in the private, biological, and sociological lives of painters." This lecture explores why Berenson selected Lotto as an artist and as a subject for a study that he described as "an essay in constructive art criticism."

Strehlke is currently overseeing a catalogue of the paintings collection of the Villa I Tatti, which was the Florentine residence of Bernard Berenson from 1900 to his death in 1959 and now is the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Explorations in its archives have yielded much new material about the early history of connoisseurship of Italian art from the 1890s to the first decades of the next century.

If you are moving to DC or want to know more about the city and surrounding areas, call Lise Howe, who knows Washington well, and loves sharing information with clients about the great things to do in her hometown!

One of the best things about the fall is the Annual Waterfowl Festival on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The festival is your chance to view and buy a variety of wildlife artwork. 450 artists will be on hand to exhibit their artwork. Shooting and fly fishing demonstrations and DUCK calling will also take place! The three day festival runs from November 11 to November 13 in Easton, Md. Tickets are $10 for the three days. For more information visit www.waterfowlfestival.com. Definitely worth checking out!

Here in the mid Atlantic region we have had one wet September. I haave planted my tulips and daffodils. The leaves are starting to fall and we are heading for autumn which makes me start to think of spring when the trees will start to turn green again. My next project is building a rain garden in my yard. Rain gardens are promoted as the easiest and most cost efficient ways to reduce your contribution to storm water pollution. A rain garden is a shallow depression in your yard that you can fill with deep rooted native plants and grasses. The garden should be positioned near a runoff source such as a downspouts, driveway, or sump pump so that the garden can capture rainwater runoff. This keeps the water from reaching the sewer system, particularly important around here since the run off can reach the Chesapeake bay! Diverting your rain water from a roof or driveway into a rain garden allows the water to soak slowly into the ground. Any contaminants are also filtered out of the runoff and not put into the were system. A rain garden can imitate the natural absorption and pollution removal that takes palace naturally in a forest, meadow, or prairie. Because rain gardens are shloow - frequently just 4" to 8" deep but never more than a foot or two deep, they hold larger quantities of rainwater making their overall construction more cost efficient than other green alternatives. Rain gardens also need less technical experience to install and can be created without permits or heavy construction equipment. They can be the perfect solution for the boggy or problem areas of your yard,

Hooray! You have settled on your new home. You have survived the anxiety of the homebuying process. Now you have a home and a yard to care for! What to do?

Now that you're in a new home, don't just dig into the dirt. Take some time to plan your course of attack!

Make your Jack O'Lantern last a week longer!

After all your hard work scraping out the seeds and string of a pumpkin and then carving it into a beautiful art from, there is nothing worse than having it rot away in two days! Here's how to preserve and protect it!

Pumpkins rot because

• Organisms (fungi, bacteria, molds, fungi, protozoans, insects) get inside it once you carve it and then the pumpkin starts to break down.
• Oxygen in the air can also easily enter and break down the pumpkin (oxidation).
• Simple dehydration (drying out) will will begin the moment the pumpkin is carved.

All of this will turn your beautifully carved pumpkin into a mess in several days time!

How to stop pumpkin aging:

• Sterilize the pumpkin's carved surfaces (to kill fungi, mold, bacteria, bugs)
• Seal the surfaces to prevent drying and to keep out new "little buggers" and reduce drying

Here are the simple steps:

1. Remove dirt: Wipe the exterior surfaces of the pumpkin clean using a damp cloth.
2. Make a bleach solution of1 tablespoon of bleach (typical brand name "Clorox) per quart of water and put it in a spray bottle.
3. Spray the pumpkin inside and all cut areas of the pumpkin with the solution. This will kill much of the surface bacteria and mold that cause rotting.
4. Let it penetrate and dry for about 20 minutes
5. Next, rub all of the carved or cut surfaces with petroleum jelly. This will keep out new bacteria and molds as well as dramatically reduce the dehydration!
6. Wipe away excess with a paper towel!
7. Now, keep your pumpkin out of direct sunlight and try to keep it as cool as possible (but above freezing!) and you should get at least a week's enjoyment out of it!