On the 5th of March, members of the International Club and History Club went on a trip to the Newark Museum of Art during the school day. As a member of history club, I was able to go on this trip. I thought that it was a fun and informative experience.
At first, we were split into two groups based on grade and each went on a guided tour. I did enjoy this part of the trip, but I did think that some of the activities they had us do went on for too long and didn’t relate too much to the actual exhibits. Overall, though, I did think that the guided section added a good amount of context to what we looked at. From this part of the trip, the thing that stood out to me the most was the Tlingit cedar chest. What set it apart from the other artifacts was that there was another, more contemporary version of it also in the museum. This newer chest was made by Preston Singletary, an artist with Tlingit heritage. While the designs on his chest echo the designs on the older chest, he put his own spin on it by making it entirely out of glass.
After the guided section, we were free to roam around the museum without a guide. I particularly enjoyed this part because I got to revisit the sections that I wanted to spend more time on. I also got to see different sections of the museum that weren’t even touched on during the guided section, like a small area that focused on space that featured a piece of a meteorite that hit the American Southwest 49,000 years ago.
I really enjoyed this trip to the Newark Museum, and I mostly got to see everything that I wanted to. However, I wish that I had more time to look at the Ballantine House, a mansion built 1885. This mansion was acquired by the Newark Museum in 1937 and is even connected to the museum’s main building. While I didn’t get to spend much time looking through the Ballantine House, I did enjoy briefly looking at it just before it was time to leave. I thought that this was a great trip, and if you join either the History or International Club, then you may be able to attend a similar trip in the future.
