Art Heals: Outside

As the weeks of pandemic lockdown fly by (well, crawl by), my world has shrunk to exactly two places—Inside and Outside. I have three rooms in Inside (four if you count the supermarket). The building lobby, mailroom and elevator do not really count, as we are told to wear masks and pass through as quickly as possible. No lingering, no sitting, no socializing, no more than one person per elevator, so it is really Outside. As for the supermarket, there is the mask thing (Outside) but I have to touch things (Inside).  I see new faces there-- well, half-faces (Outside), but I spend more time than I like breathing air in an enclosed space (Inside).
My mind, what’s left of it, is immured Inside most of the time, Inside things being keyboarding  (like surfboarding without the sun or water or waves or—well not really like surfboarding at all) or cooking or cleaning or reading or sleeping  (which can actually qualify as a partial Outside if the dreams are good).
So actually going Outside is major.   But different.  Before, Outside had elements of Inside that I liked a lot, like going to the restroom when I needed to (often), stopping for a glass of wine when I wanted to (often, hence the restroom thing) or walking to a museum and actually going in.
Now of course, Outside remains Outside and I have to make the best of it.  Enter, tah dah, ART (but you knew that).
Walking around, I search out al fresco art.  There is plenty in and around the Mall and the Smithsonian (mostly fenced in but you can lean over and look). 
More accessibly, all over town there are scads of sculptures standing around waiting to be admired. “Encore,” a sculpture of Duke Ellington by Zachary Oxman at the Howard Theater. Yinka Shonibare's  colorful sculpture on 14th Street outside the Liz building (there is a second one, "Wind" by this artist, outside the Smithsonian African Art Museum). In front of the Zaytinya restaurant across from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Albert Paley's abstract sculpture, engraved with a poem by DC’s poet laureate the late Dolores Kendrick.  And there are at least nine stabiles by my favorite, Alexander Calder, dotted about under the trees here and there.  Many more artworks are indeed hidden by this particularly verdant spring (check out the swirly Frank Stella near the East Wing, if you can find it).
Painters are getting in on the Outside act.  MuralsDC put

out a mural locator map to treasure hunt magnificent murals and grand graffiti.   And there is Andy Shallal.  When one of his Busboys’ windows was broken, rather than boarding up, this kind and creative man replaced it with a joyful painting, giving rise to #paintthestorefronts.  Artists paid by Shallal and now others, are recruited to paint the urban streetscape with colorful images in an open-air museum of optimism.
Outside just got a whole lot better.  If only there were restrooms.
Here is one of the Storefront images by Kris.  Art Heals.