Author: Lisa French

Night at the museum is a beautiful tradition that Macaulay has for freshman in the Macaulay Honors College. I was actually really excited for this event ever since I heard about it during Macaulay orientation. To be honest, I expected the night to be night at the museum themed. Like the movie. Something like watching the movie and eating popcorn while sitting in the museum. I think I would’ve enjoyed that a lot, but this night was nice as well.

I love that we got transportation and pizza. Definitely made a big difference for me. Additionally, I thought the museum was absolutely beautiful. I honestly thought it was the white house at first from the outside! I actually thought that the library we passed on the way there was the museum itself.

The museum exhibit was definitely carefully curated. Every room had its own theme: the marine room, landscapes, portraits, etc. I especially enjoyed the marine room. There was a painting of Niagara Falls and I thought it was beautiful. I used to visit Niagara Falls all the time when I was a kid so this painting was especially nostalgic for me. I also really liked the visual storage room. The way I would describe it is it was a blast from the past. It was a collection of a variety of objects from different points in time. It ranged anywhere from plates to chairs. I thought it was really interesting.

I also really enjoyed the film they had playing called “Doors”. I believe that it was a film pieced together by snippets of other films where they open and close doors. Not only that, but also looking through key holes, turning knobs, closing doors behind them, etc. The transitions between scenes were very smooth. It was also a lot more engaging than I thought it would be. I think it was because there were so many different stories that I never got bored.

Overall, this was a nice night. It was nice to come together as the class of 2029 to become a part of the Macaulay tradition of night at the museum.

For this art trip I chose the Art lab open lab in snug harbor for many reasons. Firstly, it was free! You know the saying, if it’s for free it’s for me. Also, it was much closer than the art on paper fair located in Manhattan. In fact, it’s about a 30-minute drive from my house. Compared to the art on paper fair which would have taken me 2 hours by public transportation.
I truly loved the concept of the Art Lab open lab. Not only do you get to see cool art, but you also get involved and try making art yourself. Another aspect of this that I loved is that the art labs are guided and that was very cool to me.
The first station that I came across was the ceramics station. I have always seen people online effortlessly make mugs and vases and beautiful pottery. This was definitely not the case. Making pottery is a lot harder than it seems. It gets very messy and it is much harder to make a perfectly round bowl than it looks.
The next station I saw was the art of gelli plate printing. I didn’t even know what gelli plate printing was until I saw this. Apparently, it is a technique that allows you to transfer images or leaves or whatever you want onto a soft jelly plate/surface by using acrylic paint. This technique reminded me of that hack that lets you do french nails by painting some nail polish onto a jelly like sphere and just pressing your finger into it. It was the same idea of image transferring.
I also came across a station about painting. It was basically just a lady explaining the fundamentals of painting which was nice.
The t-shirt station I passed by also looked awesome. I saw some kids coloring in their t-shirts that said “Art Lab” on the front with markers and I thought it was very cute. I really liked that this lab was open to everybody, people of all ages.
Overall, I really liked this fair. While there was art on the walls, I didn’t pay much attention to it due to the interactive nature of the lab. The lab allows those who would like to just come and see art to see it and enjoy it, but it also introduces people to techniques and art that they may not have encountered or tried before.