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Argentine Woman in Costume, Weaving on Loom on Ground 1899 by W.E. Chandlee. Image courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives.

Friday, July 30: Made in Hong Kong Film Festival: The Contract

Come enjoy this 1978 slapstick comedy about a television executive itching to get out of his current contract so he can pursue the job of his dreams—and he ropes his eccentric inventor brother and second-rate magician friend in on the scheme. This film is presented in Cantonese with English subtitles. Free. Freer, 7:00 PM

Saturday, July 31: 2-Day Festival: All Hands on Design! Native Designers from Argentina

Get to know the art and artistry of Argentine design through this special two-day festival that’s jam-packed with hands-on activities for kids and adults. You’ll have an opportunity to chat with textile artists Fidelia Levicoy and Maria Toribio as well as potter and flute maker Daniel Ramos. Try your hands at making pieces that use traditional native designs and take home your artworks as a souvenir. This event repeats tomorrow. Free. American Indian Museum, 10:00-4:30 PM.

Sunday, August 1: Book Your Gullah Peachie Recipes

Learn about classic Gullah foods—like peach cobbler, special breads, shrimp and grits—and how to make a simple cookbook of your own from licensed nutritionist Ida Harrington. Free. Anacostia Museum, 1:00-3:00 PM

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com

Lunar 7 probe replica. Image courtesy of the Air and Space Museum.

With the USSR’s launch of the unmanned Sputnik I satellite in October 1957, the United States was racing to best its communist competitor at space exploration. After this accomplishment, the Soviets soon became the first to have a satellite orbit the earth, the first to send animals and then humans into space. While the Americans were able to match these feats, it was never a nation that has taken well to staying in second place for very long. With the moon being the obvious next frontier to explore, it was imperative to gain an edge on the competition. NASAs Ranger program accomplished that end, and on this day in 1964, the spacecraft Ranger 7 sent back the first high definition photos of the lunar surface.

Unfortunately, early NASA programs more often than not were overwhelming failures while the USSR was already taking photographs of the moon courtesy of their Luna probes and making plans to make a soft landing on the moon’s surface. It was imperative that NASA’s Ranger series of probes be a success. The idea was to launch the spacecraft—each equipped with an array of television cameras—on a collision course with the moon, taking pictures during those final minutes before impact. Unfortunately, the first six in the series succumbed to technical failures or missed the moon entirely. For NASA,  the success of Ranger 7 was imperative. Luckily, with no technical foul-ups plaguing the mission, the Ranger 7 was able to transmit photos that revealed details of the lunar surface that could not have been observed via telescope and helped pave the way for the first manned lunar landing in 1969.

You can see a replica of Ranger 7 at the Air and Space Museum in gallery 112—it was assembled from the parts of  Ranger test vehicles. You can also check out the video footage shot by Ranger 7 below as well as an extended piece on the space mission published by Air and Space magazine.

Study for "Portrait of Van Gogh" V (1957) by Francis Bacon. Image courtesy of the Hirshhorn.

His thick, impasto brush strokes—the likes of which got him kicked out of art class—and brilliant colors are part of Vincent van Gogh’s signature style. Perhaps equally famous to his groundbreaking artworks is the artist’s lifelong struggle with inner demons that led to erratic displays of self-destructive behavior such as cutting off his left earlobe and shooting himself in the chest. The latter incident ended up costing him his life and on this day in 1890, the artist died from his wounds.

Though under-appreciated by his contemporaries—the man only sold one painting in his lifetime—critics and lay art lovers alike have since gone gaga for van Gogh. The images of daisies, irises, night scenes illuminated by stars and street lamps have been subject to both serious study and mass marketing to the point where, 120 years after his death, van Gogh is a mainstay in our collective consciousness. Doubt me? Search Calendars.com and see how many 2011 calendars are exclusively sporting his artworks.

You can also experience van Gogh by way of the Smithsonian. The Cooper Hewitt’s collections sport a pen and ink drawing done by the artist while he was living in Arles, France. (Unfortunately, due to rights restrictions, we can’t use the image here on the blog, but you can see it online at the Cooper Hewitt’s site here.) And though the Hirshhorn doesn’t have any canvases by the master himself, it does have a series of paintings by Irish painter Francis Bacon, who strove to emulate van Gogh’s style. (As evidenced in the painting study above.) Smithsonian magazine has also run several features that cover different aspects of the artist’s life and work,  from taking a close look at his nighttime paintings (here), to his correspondence with a young, up-and coming artist (here), to recounting his tumultuous final days (here).

I’d feel a mite remiss if I didn’t point you in a few non-SI directions to get to know van Gogh a bit better. In 2008, Columbia University professor and art historian Simon Schama produced a riveting documentary miniseries that focused on the lives of six spectacular artists, one of whom was van Gogh. He’s played here by Lord of the Rings alumnus Andy Serkis (the actor responsible for Gollum for those not in the know.) If you’re looking for a more dramatic treatment, check out the 1956 biopic Lust for Life. Directed by Vincente Minelli and starring a pre-Spartacus Kirk Douglass in the lead, it should give you a good impression of van Gogh’s life and work.

John Mather's Nobel Prize medal was returned to its recipient. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Earlier this year, astronaut Piers Sellers contacted Nobel-Prize-winning physicist John Mather to see whether or not he would be interested in lending his 2006 medal to the space shuttle Atlantis for his upcoming trip to the International Space Station.

Mather’s winning work involved measuring “cosmic background microwave radiation” using the COBE satellite launched by NASA in 1989. Mather and his partner, George Smoot, found that the spectrum of the radiation measured matched that predicted to result from the Big Bang, confirming the validity of this theory of the inception of the universe.

Upon receiving the medal, Mather requested that three replicas be made for his colleagues at NASA and the Air and Space Museum. In a process unknown to those unlucky folk not to have won a Nobel Prize, the Nobel committee produces replicas for winners that are not identical to the original medal, but are still valuable and genuine.

Thrilled by Sellers’ idea, Mather contacted the museum, which had the only replica of the Nobel Prize medal not ensconced in thick plastic; such materials could potentially release harmful fumes inside the enclosed space shuttle. Although at the time the museum staff were suffering through the infamous Washington, D.C. Snowpocalypse of 2010, they were able to access the medal and send it off to Sellers, embedded in a box approximately the size of a refrigerator. After briefly contemplating several options for what to do with such a large object in the space shuttle (put a “hood” on it? Bust the medal out with a hammer?), the medal, its oversized carrying case, and Sellers — resigned to find room for the box– were off to space.

John Mather’s 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics medal isn’t the only one that’s been on an epic journey. Many medals have crossed multiple oceans and continents. German scientists James Franck and Max von Laue even dissolved their medals in nitro-hydrochloric acid to prevent them from being confiscated by the Nazis during World War II. (After the war, Danish physicist Niels Bohr extracted the gold from the solution and the medals were recast.)

But while von Laue and Franck’s medals may have lived through two incarnations, Mather’s medal is the first to have traveled beyond the terrestrial realm and into the reaches of outer space.

Sellers returned the replica to Mather in a presentation Tuesday at the National Air and Space Museum downtown. Standing before a large crowd, Mather recounted his first visit to the museum, when he “felt tears rolling down” his face at the sight of such innovative exploration and discovery.

“The lives of museum objects don’t end when they get to the museum,” said Margaret Weitekamp, a curator in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum. “They continue as they are rebuilt or restored…or even as they’re flown into space.”  Only time will tell where Mather’s Nobel medal may shove off to next; but for now, we’ll be content to know that it’s home safe in the collections of the Smithsonian.

Everett Raymond Kinstler's portrait of Norman Y. Mineta is now on display in the National Portrait Gallery

“There are times when you think about your life in reflection.” Norman Y. Mineta stood before a group of family, friends, former colleagues and Smithsonian staffers Monday evening as his soft eyes gazed at his own likeness sitting across the podium in a regal gold frame. “I don’t know if you should be proud to be hanged, but there’s no question that I’m proud to be hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.”

Mineta—formerly secretary of commerce under Bill Clinton and secretary of transportation under George W. Bush—was painted by New York artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, who has more than 80 portraits already in the Portrait Gallery’s collection, including Yo Yo Ma, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Katharine Hepburn. The portrait was unveiled and hung Monday evening, in a program that included remarks by museum staff, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program that gifted the portrait to the Portrait Gallery, and Mineta himself.

Mineta’s is a different American story from most. Having been sent to a Japanese internment camp as a child during World War II, he worked his way up through the ranks of state and federal government. Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture at the Smithsonian, praised Mineta as “a true public servant, who instead of becoming embittered by his experiences, learned from them, worked hard and accomplished much.” Kurin read a letter from President Barack Obama, calling “Norm” the “consummate public servant.”

Mineta recounted stories of his siblings facing discrimination when they were younger—of his sister, who wanted to be a school teacher but was told nobody would hire her because of her Japanese heritage—and of his brother, whose draft card in 1942 was marked by the designation “4C,” or “enemy alien.”

But despite what may have been a painful past, Mineta emphasized the positive influences he received throughout his life. “Through these kinds of experiences, you get mentored,” he said. “I’m privileged to be standing on the shoulders of giants of the past. . .I hope to play a small role in encouraging Asian Pacific Americans to go up the ladder of success, and to pull someone else up with them.”

The portrait depicts Mineta, arms folded, in a dark suit with an American flag pinned to his lapel. He stands before an Asian screen, and a small sculpture sits in the lower right-hand corner of the canvas. Kinstler, the artist, said he does not believe in “gimmicks,” but in “making use of objects that show something about the character of the subject.” Because the portrait was social rather than political (now that Mineta is no longer a government official), Kinstler felt justified in using vibrant colors for the background and small props to bring a “sense of life” to the painting.

As the portrait was hung in the hall of the museum, Mineta and Kinstler—now friendly after four sittings for the portrait—feigned clamoring for attention from the cameras, one white-haired man leaping boyishly in front of the other. I recall Kurin’s words from earlier in the evening: “In one lifetime, one can embody a great American story.”