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John Alexander is an artist who packs a painterly punch. The power of his vivid, expressive imagery solicits a breath-taking effect, especially in a gallery hung with 40 of his big, bold paintings and 27 of his elegant works on paper.

Tomorrow, December 20, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) opens the first major, full-scale retrospective encompassing the artist’s three-decade career.

John Alexander (b. 1945), says Eleanor Harvey SAAM’s chief curator, “has a passion for paint.” His paintings are a bright profusion of energy and vitality, many of them laced with humor and irony.

In his 1989 “Venus and Adonis,” a naked couple is in bed; each figure is backlit by a strange, eerie blaze that threatens to engulf them. They are either engaged in a heated argument or consumed by a fiery passion. Is this a disintegrating marriage or a dangerous liaison?

The titles of his works on paper are subtly narrative. A gnarled vulture casts a dazed glance at the viewer. The work is entitled “Aging Rock Star.” Is it a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of Keith Richards?

Many of his artworks are accompanied by Alexander’s cogent, thoughtful commentary. His views on politics, religion and the human condition form a third body of work, an illustration in words.

In text posted with his 2002 watercolor “Marabou Stork,” he notes: “Not one day since I was born, has the landscape gained an inch. Every single day habitat is lost, and species are vanishing at an alarming rate.”

“John Alexander’s life-long fascination with the natural world,” observes SAAM’s director Elizabeth Broun, “connects his work with subjects of deep meaning throughout America.”

“John Alexander: A Retrospective” is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through March 16, 2008.

(John Alexander, Dancing on the Water Lilies of Life, 1988, Oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. Claude Albritton and the Museum League Purchase Fund © John Alexander)

You may know Ben Nighthorse Campbell as a Colorado Senator who was elected in 1993 and served until 2005 or as the sponsor of the bill that established the National Museum of the American Indian.

But add master jeweler to the list. For decades, Campbell has crafted necklaces, bracelets and other pieces made with gems, sterling silver and gold in his studio in Ignacio, Colorado. Most recently, he has created a Creation Pendant, sold only at the National Museum of the American Indian with proceeds funding its programs.

Modeled after a talisman worn by 14th-century Moors, the silver pendant with a turquoise center stone is meant to bring good fortune to its wearers

If Campbell’s artistic side is news to you, get this. He also captained the American judo team at the 1964 Olympics.

(Photograph Courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian)

Tai Shan, the two-year-old giant panda cub at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, surveyed Washington D.C.’s first major snowfall from high in a tree.

Tai Shan should feel right at home in the cold snow—giant pandas are native to central China where snow is common in the winter.

(Photo Courtesy of Jessie Cohen/Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park)

There was a sneak peek tour of the National Museum of American History last week. The press donned hard hats and clambered around amid the dust and noise, following behind the tour guide, aka director Brent D. Glass. “We are making great strides,” he announced.

The museum closed last fall for an $85-million renovation project that includes a drastically reorganized central atrium, which will house a grand staircase and a skylight that will bring natural light into the building’s center. The first and second floors will also have floor-to-ceiling glass showcases for better display and rotation of the museum’s three million artifacts.

The museum in its current state of demolition proved disorienting to those who knew it before. The familiar marble paneled walls were gone, along with the wall where the Star-Spangled Banner once hung. From the first floor, we could see all the way up to third floor. And everyone needed frequent orientation directions—where’s the National Mall from here?

But under Glass’s tutelage we begin imagining what was to come. The museum’s state-of-the-art new Star-Spangled Banner gallery will be the first thing visitors encounter when they enter the building from the Mall. The lighting in the gallery, dimmed for preserving the 30-by-34-foot wool and cotton flag, will evoke the “dawn’s early light” from the National Anthem, written by Francis Scott Key.

New exhibitions are planned for the reopening year, including the 8,000-square-foot “On the Water: Stories from Maritime America.”

The museum plans to announce its opening day in February. Stay tuned.

(Photographs by Brendan McCabe)

Part of Jeff Place’s job as an archivist at Smithsonian’s Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is to field questions from around the world about music. And with his desk, nestled amidst original recordings of songs and interviews with some of the biggest names in music, he is well-prepared for the task.

“I think I’m the person on NPR’s Rolodex when they look up ‘folk,’” says Place.

Now, he adds a new gig to his routine. With host Sam Litzinger, Place records “Sound Sessions from Smithsonian Folkways,” a radio show that airs the third Sunday of every month (6 p.m.) on WAMU 88.5, the NPR affiliate for the greater Washington, D.C. area. It also airs six times a month on WAMU’s HD channel bluegrasscountry.org.

They have started with what Place calls the “low-hanging fruit,” or the musical icons with the most material in the archives. The first two shows (listen) were on Woody Guthrie and Doc Watson. Place and Litzinger string together rare outtakes, biographical information on the artist and their own discussion of styles, lyrics and the times that inspired them.

“We think, what do we have in the back room? Maybe an interview with an interesting person, an old recording no one’s heard in years,” says Place. “Lately we’ve been picking an artist, but we might get to a point where we want to do a topic like railroad songs or sea shanties. We have a list of 300 to 400 topics that we want to get to eventually.”

The father of bluegrass Bill Monroe is next in the lineup, with American folk legends Dock Boggs on deck and Pete Seeger in the hole.

“It’s a chance for people to really experience the archives,” says Place, “to hear things they’re not likely to hear and a chance for us to get them out of the boxes.”