'Unmentionables' Sculpture Is Hung Out to Dry

"She told me to replace it with 'anything but underwear,' " Zipperer says. She settled on "Chapeau," a large, silver-colored hat with stainless steel flowers on top.

"Unmentionables" has been shown about seven times since Zipperer created it in 2002, including at Zenith Gallery on Seventh Street NW and at an art festival in Fairfax. From February to May, Zipperer exhibited a wire screen corset with pantaloons and a black thong at Washington Square without incident.

Zipperer, a Springfield resident with a Mobile, Ala., accent, has been an artist for 35 years. She started creating feminine objects from masculine materials in 2000, when she learned how to weld.

Lerner Enterprises, which owns the building, requires all artists to sign contracts before showing their work at Washington Square. The contract states, "The work may be withdrawn from the exhibition by Washington Square ("Exhibitor") at its discretion at any time."

The show's curator, Richard Suib, has organized about 50 exhibitions for the building's lobby and can remember only one artwork -- a sculpture, 10 years ago -- that had to be pulled post-installation. The current exhibition, which doesn't have a theme, features 42 pieces by 23 artists and includes works such as "Salmon Run," a mixed-media sculpture of two fish by Andrea Uravitch, and "Ballet de Metro," a bronze statue by Gary Hughes of a group of people squished together on the Metro.

"There's a lot of positive things that [Lerner] does," Suib says. "They give local artists an opportunity to show their work. There are just certain guidelines. It's unfortunate that things have happened with the vehemence that we've seen here."

The Washington Square Invitational Sculpture Exhibition is on view through Oct. 31 at 1050 Connecticut Ave. NW, Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday noon-6 p.m. An artists' reception takes place 3-6 p.m. Sept. 6. 202-296-2800.

Many Hands Remake a Wall

Jalika Street waited for the school bus to Alice Deal Junior High School every morning at 14th Street and Colorado Avenue NW. She had the choice of staring at the drab brick wall of the Children's Medical Care Center or watching the Metrobuses come and go from the transfer station.

Now a 22-year-old graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Street returned to her 16th Street Heights neighborhood this summer to paint a 9-by-75-foot, brightly colored mural on the wall. She painted key sections of the artwork, and recruited young campers from neighborhood recreation centers to paint 3-by-3-foot squares of the patchwork-quilt-style mural. Street encouraged them to work within the theme of Washington history, but the younger campers just stuck their palms in paint and made handprints. For her part, Street painted images of Howard University, the Alice Deal school mascot and the D.C. Caribbean Carnival, her favorite annual event.

Her goal for the project is to "increase youth's ownership of the area," she says, something she experienced when she helped paint a mural at the Twin Oaks Community Garden at 14th and Taylor streets NW while in high school at School Without Walls.

Curious passersby were also invited to pick up a paintbrush. Local artist G. Byron Peck, who created the mural of Duke Ellington on U Street NW, helped Street with logistics, such as figuring out what kind of paint to use.

"I wanted lots of people to get that experience, people who don't necessarily consider themselves artists," she says. "I barely consider myself a painter, so getting the community involved was the only way the project was doable."