Tag: ArtPage 1 of 2

Van Gogh and Me

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…

Artifacts at the Museum

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…

World History Puzzles

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…

Quotidian moments

A note I wrote from April 16, 2020 From my dining room table: My two children, ages four and six, have now been at home for 35 days….

Human Grace

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…

An Afternoon at the MoMA

In the summer of 2009, in the final year of my undergraduate studies, I spent a month in New York with my sister. The MoMA was always going…

The Original Starry Night

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…

A Painting, A Baby, and Jacques Lacan Walk into a Syllabus…

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…

Have One on Joanna Newsom

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…

humanity without The Humanities

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…

How “Untitled No. 11, 1963” Affected Me

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…

Saints at Devil’s Gates that Opened My Eyes

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…

Buddhism and Art

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…

Pre-verbal Sketching

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…

Aesthetic Sensibilities and Property Management

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…

The Brightest Star in the Night

My humanities moment took place over a few years. It all started one day when I was in the 4th grade. This was one of my favorite days…

How I Found Humanity in a Dark Cave

The most literal definition of the word humanities as always fascinated me. What could be cooler than getting to the very crux of what it means to be…

Historical Perspectives

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…

Representing Southeast Asia

There’s a game I like to play in class called “Look At.” We practice our close reading skills by gazing at a picture for 3 minutes and then…

Finding Meaning in Art

My moment came at one of the least expected times for me over the past few weeks. To begin, I am not a lover of art. I generally…