Last November my grandmother was visiting and wanted to do something fun. Instead of fun, my mother dragged us to the traveling “Beyond Van Gogh” exhibit that was…
Recently, I’ve found myself longing to take advantage of the Smithsonian Museums that are so conveniently located ten miles northeast of my home—maybe it’s because such destinations were…
I have vague recollections of eating my packed lunch on the stone steps of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art after completing a scavenger hunt for facts about…
In 2009, when I was a freshman in college, I went to France and Germany at the end of a year-long seminar exploring the emergence of European nationalism…
Starlight Over the Rhone is a precursor to the much more famous “Starry, Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh. It features a boundless black sky that merges into…
This summer, I am working with the Syracuse University Art Museum to create English-specific teaching resources. The goal is to make the museum’s collections more accessible to instructors…
As I considered a range of options for my Humanities Moment, I instinctively knew it would come down to music, which is the element that moves me most…
My “humanities moment” occurred during my undergraduate studies at what was/is essentially a trade school in Pakistan (with no GenEd courses and only one course on Art or…
My humanities moment happened at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. The piece that struck me the most during my visit to the museum was…
Throughout my childhood, I was often taught about my ancestors-the Mormon Pioneers-and the suffering they went through in order to travel to America, and then to Utah. Because…
As I was walking through the MFA I saw some statues of Buddha and buddhavistas. Finally I saw an ahbatabi Buddha shrine. I connected what I was learning…
Before I was able to articulate in words how I was processing the world around me—shifts in mood, media images, the domestic mundane—I found sketching to be a…
Author, educational advocate, and entrepreneur David Bruce Smith reflects on the manner in which his parents encouraged and valued his engagement with visual art while growing up. Years…
I was born in Boston and raised in New England. I attended an elite, all-girls, private school in New England, which was established in 1854 with the mission…