Month: October 2017

Last Wednesday on October 25, I was able to go to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with a few of my friends for free using my Baruch ID. I had never been there before, so it was an exciting experience. The only art museums I have went to were the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When I entered, I got a cute ticket with a painting of a flower on it. It was around 4:40 P.M. and the museum was going to close in almost an hour. We didn’t know where to go, but there was apparently an exhibit on the 6^th floor that was limited time only, so it seemed like a good idea to go there.

The exhibit was called “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” The existence of the exhibit really surprised me because despite the fact that the MoMA is known for having modern and contemporary pieces, I expected to see paintings and sculptures. The exhibit reminded me of a shopping mall because there were so many articles of clothing everywhere. I saw many shirts, pants, shoes, suits, graphic tees, jerseys, undergarments, and cultural clothing. I was taken aback when I saw shoes from Nike and Adidas, but I realized that they fit in perfectly with the rest of the collection because of how popular they are and how seemingly everywhere wears them. Something that really stood out to me was Issey Miyake and Fujiwara Dai’s “A-Poc Queen.” Compared to everything else I saw, it was really extravagant and elegant. It filled a large area of the room with its presence. There was one big roll of textile, and it was hung across multiple nails on the wall to accentuate its length and size. The long seams of fabric being displayed was extended to a piece of clothing a woman was wearing. It was as though the woman was wearing one long continuous dress that didn’t have anything part of it sewed on. By the time we were done observing the exhibit, it was time for the museum to close and we had to go. I may have only been in there for almost an hour, but I found the MoMA to be a fun place to explore.

I got off the 7 train with my friend and we had over to the Queens Museum of Art.  We picked this museum to go to because she wanted to grab food in Flushing right after we we’re done looking around.  The museum was hard to find as it was in the opposite side of the park from where we entered.  The park itself was bigger than we had expected and we were slightly tired by the time we got inside.

We began with the Tiffany Lamp exhibit as it was very bright and colorful.  These stain-colored glass lamps were all unique from each other as no two lamps are made to look the same.  Individually they are not so appealing but that maybe due to my disinterest in the arts.  However, seeing all of them together made them look very harmonious.  This represents the population of Baruch to me as every person I met so far has been different; some of whom I enjoy to hang out with after classes.

Next we visited The Wandering Lake by Patty Chang.  This gallery struck out to me because there was a large model of the painting right in front of it.  It almost bridged the gap between the artist and I.  My friend told me that it reminded her of how different Baruch was on paper compared to when she first started.  After adjusting to being a student at Baruch, Baruch felt more comfortable to be in, almost as if a second home.  I agreed with this because to me, thinking about college was a bit stressful initially.  It did not help with the amount of work that was foreshadowed during the first week of classes.  As time went by, I found that by reworking my work and free time schedule, the workload was actually reasonable.

My friends and I, who have yet to do our second blog post, decided that we would go to the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, for our academic life post. We chose to go there because there were advertisements on the train about the fashion exhibit in MOMA. Not only that, but with our CUNY student IDs, we would be able to get in for free. So after class on Wednesday, my friends and I met up and headed towards MOMA. Finding the right entrance was a bit confusing, but eventually, we got our free CUNY tickets and went straight to the sixth floor, where the fashion exhibit was. Once we went up, we were instantly greeted with the gift shop on the right and two walls on the left explaining fashion and its exhibit. One of the walls also had a list of items that it had in the exhibit, ordered in alphabetically. We had to enter through this door to see the exhibit. On the other side, the room was dark, but still had enough light to see everything. As we walked around the exhibit, we noticed many familiar items, such as the Adidas Superstars and hooded sweatshirts from Champion. We also noticed many unique pieces. There was a “Dress Meets Body” Collection, where the pieces focused on body ideals and sent a strong message to others. There were also more normal pieces in the exhibit that focused more on just fashion. Unfortunately, I had to leave early, so I wasn’t able to explore the other floors, which had paintings, but the fashion exhibit was a great exhibit nevertheless.

The fashion exhibit in MOMA ends on January 28th, and I recommend you all to visit the exhibit, to make use of your free pass using the CUNY student ID to see some cool clothing!

 

On September 28, my friend had three hours gap so she asked me to go to museum with her. Then we decided to go to The Museum of Modern Art. We followed the google map so we took the R train and walked about fifteen minutes. After arrived the museum, we got confused on getting the ticket. We found out there are machines for getting the tickets which show $14 for students. However, we heard it’s free for students with CUNY ID. Therefore, we walked toward the help desks and asked about the ticket. The staff gave us two tickets from the machine with random picture on the back. The art works on the tickets caught my attention and I wonder what art works are in the museum.

We quickly walked toward the escalator, but the staff stopped me while she checked the tickets. She told me to put my backpack in the check room because it is too big. We started from the second floor first. There were a lot of art by Louise Bourgeois, but we were not interested on this type of art. Then, we headed to the fifth floor because we saw there were paintings and sculptures from the map. On fifth floor, there were more people but it was still very quiet. People were enjoying or taking photos with the art works. There were many colorful paintings which caught my attention. Each color is interacted with each other with irregular shapes. Some colors were contrasting but I felt comfortable when I was staring at the painting. There is a simplest painting by Piet Mondrian (Lozenge with Four and Gray). That is my favorite painting because it’s simple, but the caption didn’t explain too much about this painting.

The experience of visiting museum made me feel calm and relax because the museum is quiet and people were moving with slow motion. I think it is great to have CUNY id so I can visit more museums with free admission.

I was assigned an assignment for ENG 2100 and I struggled a lot. The topic was on how language played a role in my identity. For some reason I was not able to think of any moments in my life that language influenced the person that I was. My essay went through major revisions from the first draft to the final draft. I conferenced with my professor about what needed to be edited in my first draft and received some ideas about what I could think about including in my essay. Even then, I still felt like I wasn’t answering the assigned question so I decided maybe I should get another person’s opinion on my final draft. What better way of getting this done than to go to the Writing Center. If you had ever tried to make an appointment with the Writing Center you would know that it is hard since spots get taken up quickly. Since this was a last minute, urgent situation I decided to go to the 25 minute walk-in session at the Newman Library available on Monday-Thursday from the hours of 1pm to 6pm. Spots are first come first serve. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long. I met with Joshua Weber. I told him exactly what I wanted him to focus on while he was reading my final draft which was whether or not I was answering the prompt and if the examples I used worked in the essay. The only problem he found was that the order of my paragraphs could have been rearranged so that it would strengthen my essay. He taught me a strategy that I could use to better arrange my paragraphs. He told me to write a summary of each paragraph in a complete, concise sentence. Then from there he told me to rearrange the sentences to see if there was a better order that I could use and it turns out there was a better way to have organized my essay. This was a great tip that I will be sure to use in the future. In the end, it was a pretty productive session despite it being only 25 minutes long.

On one Thursday afternoon, my friends JJ and Ryan and I decided to visit a museum instead of heading home. We knew of like 2 museums so we all came to an agreement to go to The Museum of Modern Art. Even though it was only a 20-minute trip away, we didn’t know our directions and had to use Google Maps. After we got there, we showed the front desk our IDs and got tickets to explore many floors of amazing artwork. The regular admission would have been $25 but with our CUNY IDs, the tickets were free. We started our expedition on the second floor. There were a lot of paintings but not many of them caught my eye. What got me was a diorama, a little 3D model of a building. I thought it was pretty cool because it was small and detailed. I also realized it was probably a lot of work constructing with all those tiny pieces. We looked around for a bit more and found ourselves in a room full of these dioramas. We brought ourselves to this specific model that was protected by this thick cage of glass. We wondered how they put this cage together and began tapping all around it. Apparently the security guard got annoyed and asked us to refrain from touching the glass. We had a good chuckle and left. Reaching the next floor, we saw this abstract work of art with turning signs. All the signs were pointing in different directions and we were all like, “whoa, which way?” That’s when we decided we wanted to take a photo with this masterpiece. Some time after that moment, we headed home. I realized the CUNY ID provided us with an opportunity to visit museum for free and that could be applied to many other museums. I mean not only that but being a CUNY student has its perks. It was a nice time spent with good friends.