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LITERATURE	Poetry Club Meeting	25 Jun	5:00 PM	LEARN MORECLOSE
Event Overview: Poetry Club Meeting Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 5:00 pm Spilsbury Gallery OPEN TO ALL ARTS CLUB MEMBERS $10 Includes wine reception Please join the Poetry Club for a glass of wine and a lively discussion of selected poems and perhaps an essay by Wendell Berry, farmer, activist, environmentalist, cultural critic and poet. According to Wikipedia, "Berry has written at least twenty-five books (or chapbooks) of poems, twenty-four volumes of essays, and fifteen novels and short story collections. His writing is grounded in the notion that one's work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place." Berry's place on earth is Kentucky but he speaks to all of us humans, wherever we live. View details TICKETS: ACW Member 10 - RSVP: $ 0 RSVP View details

The Art's Club's gracious entrance hall

A HOME FOR THE ARTS IN A UNIQUE WASHINGTON HOUSE

Since its founding in 1916, the Arts Club of Washington has promoted and celebrated the visual, performing, and literary arts in the nation’s capital. Arts Club members come from a wide range of artistic disciplines and professional backgrounds, joined by their shared enjoyment and appreciation of the arts.

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BECOME A MEMBER—AND PART OF THE TRADITION

The Arts Club of Washington has long held a distinctive profile among Washington’s clubs. Founded in 1916 by a group of prominent local artists and modeled on New York’s National Arts Club and the Chelsea Arts Club in London, the Arts Club was the very first in the city to have women in leadership roles and as members from its very start. Its arts-focused, innovative, and bohemian character provided a unique contrast to the city’s more traditional, all-male private clubs.

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The Arts Club is both a private membership organization and a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and public programming spotlighting the full range of the arts is a significant part of the club’s activities. The club welcomes visitors to four gallery spaces; free weekly concerts; events focusing on writing, dance, and theatre; and studio classes in visual arts. Much of the public programming is free.

The club draws much of its character and tradition from its home, the center of which is an historic Federal-era mansion that once served as the residence of James Monroe—and for a time, as his official presidential residence.

The club’s mission also includes promoting the importance of historic preservation through the ongoing restoration and preservation of the club’s headquarters, which encompasses significant 19th-century structures designated as a National Historic Landmark (the James Monroe House) and on the National Register of Historic Places (the General Robert MacFeely House).

The creative and generous spirit of those founders endures in the warm, welcoming, and lively organization that is today’s Arts Club of Washington. We welcome people who engage in the arts (both professionally and for the love of it), or simply enjoy and support the arts, to consider the many benefits of membership and to join us as the Arts Club continues to make Washington history.

UPCOMING EVENTS


LITERATURE	Poetry Club Meeting	25 Jun	5:00 PM	LEARN MORECLOSE
Event Overview: Poetry Club Meeting Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 5:00 pm Spilsbury Gallery OPEN TO ALL ARTS CLUB MEMBERS $10 Includes wine reception Please join the Poetry Club for a glass of wine and a lively discussion of selected poems and perhaps an essay by Wendell Berry, farmer, activist, environmentalist, cultural critic and poet. According to Wikipedia, "Berry has written at least twenty-five books (or chapbooks) of poems, twenty-four volumes of essays, and fifteen novels and short story collections. His writing is grounded in the notion that one's work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place." Berry's place on earth is Kentucky but he speaks to all of us humans, wherever we live. View details TICKETS: ACW Member 10 - RSVP: $ 0 RSVP View details


LITERATURE	Book Event - Downstairs at the White House	25 Jun	6:30 PM	LEARN MORECLOSE
Event Overview: The Arts Club of Washington Drama and Literary Committees present Downstairs at the White House with Author and Humorist Donald M. Stinson Wednesday, June 25, 2025 6:30pm-9:30pm Arts Club Members $25 - Non-Members $30 *A personally inscribed, author-signed paperback copy of the book will be provided free to the first 50 paid registrants* Please join us for an unforgettable evening at the historic Monroe House as the Arts Club of Washington proudly hosts author and humorist Don Stinson to speak about his bestselling, award winning memoir, Downstairs at the White House (The true story of a teenager, an Oval Office, and a ringside seat to Watergate). About the Book In 1973, at just 17 years old, Don Stinson stumbled into a job—not an internship—at the White House during the height of the Watergate scandal. A truly insignificant member of the Nixon White House staff, he frequently loitered outside of the Oval Office to watch it unfold. What he saw throughout the White House ran the gamut from the deeply profound to the wildly hilarious. He was also a kid who did the same kind of harebrained things most teenagers do. Only steps away from the Oval Office, he fought with a foreign head of state for space in a restroom. He spilled ice water on Frank Sinatra. And that was just the small stuff. A laugh-out-loud funny, fast-paced memoir, Downstairs at the White House is richly decorated with presidents, first ladies, celebrities ... and events that shook America. Praise for the Book Kirkus Review of Books called it “a captivating account of a historically momentous time told from a refreshingly uncommon perspective… Stinson’s prose is unfailingly clear and his tone is self-effacing.” WCBS Radio, New York said, “Don Stinson is the guy at the party they’ll listen to when he says, ‘Well, I’ve got a story to tell.’” About the Author A graduate of American University’s School of Public Affairs and former senior vice president of marketing for the newspaper division of Gannett Co., Inc., Don is also an honorary member of the Union of Russian Journalists, a story that involved a great deal of vodka. In the 1990s, he worked with Russian newspapers to build a free press during the Yeltsin era. Although that didn't work out so well, he nevertheless managed to be held hostage in a smelting plant, sleep in an insane asylum guarded by sheepherders, and wrestle a goat on Russian airliner Aeroflot. The goat won. But that’s another story. Price also includes reception with full bar and hors d’oeuvres after the program. Discounted parking (free for members with membership card) at 2001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW DC. Entrance on 20^th Street (first garage, on the left, just past I Street. Seating is limited; registration online recommended no later than Monday, June 23^rd. To purchase the book in Paperback, Audible, or Kindle, go to https://a.co/d/gfts0Ax or www.downstairsatthewhitehouse.com View details TICKETS: ACW Member $25 - RSVP: $ 0 Non-Member - Buy Now: $ 30 RSVP View details


POETRY	Reading from Korean Poetry Anthology	26 Jun	12:00 PM	LEARN MORECLOSE
Event Overview: *Songs in a Second Language:* An Anthology of Korean American Literature Edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud Thursday, June 26, 2025 12:00 - 2:00 pm OPEN TO THE PUBLIC $15 FREE FOR MEMBERS The program includes a reception at the end. The book will be available for purchase and signing during the reception. Space is limited. Please register early. Please join us at the historic Monroe House where the Arts Club of Washington hosts the book’s editor, Young-Key Kim-Renaud, Professor Emeritus of George Washington University, and her 12 fellow authors as they read selections from Songs in a Second Language. The book is an anthology of poetry and prose, written in English, by members of the Korean Literary Society of Washington (KLSW), who were born in Korea but have lived most of their adulthood in the U.S. These works portray historical, societal, and ethical situations facing Koreans and Korean Americans. Songs in a Second Language was born out of their creative effort to find a space in the broader American literary canon as well as in the Korean one. Grace Cavalieri, tenth State of Maryland Poet Laureate, observes that “Songs in a Second Language is the first of its kind in scope and depth. We know poetry and prose are transformational; writing is the way we go inward to find the energy to speak our truth. This is an experience where we reconnect language to ourselves; and although this compendium is an honor to one culture, it unites various individuals, each with a separate consciousness, and with separate stories.” The book will be available for purchase and signing. The program includes a reception. Seating is limited RSVP and registrations online recommended no later than Tuesday, June 24, 2025. Photo: Songs in a Second Language: An Anthology of Korean American Literature Edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud ISBN 978-0-938572-79-4 Library of Congress # 2024913039 Published in 2024 by Forest Woods Media Productions 1821 Glade Court Annapolis, MD 21403-1945 View details TICKETS: ACW Member RSVP: $ 0 Non-Member RSVP: $ 15 RSVP View details