Luke Goes to Washington DC

By Luke O’Brien

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Hi! My name is Luke O’Brien, I’m a graduating senior from Swampscott, Massachusetts. I’m studying English/Communications with a concentration in Literature, and I’m also getting a minor in Creative Writing and Arts Management. Although I only added my Arts Management minor about halfway through my time here at MCLA, it has been an immense privilege to study and work so closely with different arts organizations all over the area, in particular, my internship in the Clark Art Institute’s Advancement department. One of the most special opportunities I’ve been afforded was going on this semester’s travel course to Washington, D.C. to study arts and cultural policy on a federal policy. I’m excited to share the details of my trip with you, and what I learned during it!

We left from North Adams to D.C. early Saturday morning. After a long bus drive, we got settled into the hotel and started familiarizing ourselves with the area. We walked to dinner a couple blocks away. We then did our own little walking tour to the sites in and around the area, including an obligatory stop by the White House.

            The next day was probably the busiest day of our whole trip. We went to four different museums! Our first stop was the National Air and Space Museum, this was one of the oldest museums we went to, and we got to explore different rockets, airplanes and exhibits about our solar system, galaxy, and the universe around us. A lot of this was nicely summarized in a show we watched in the planetarium, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. We then made our way to National Museum of the American Indian, where we were able to dive into the museum’s café, which featured a bunch of different cuisine from different areas of the country. We only had about an hour to explore this museum, and I spent it checking out the exhibit about treaties made between tribes and white colonialists and later, the United States government. This was a really engrossing and interesting exhibit that I probably could’ve spent the rest of the day pouring over it. However, we quickly made our way over to the Hirshhorn Museum, which is the Smithsonian’s contemporary art institute, similar to MASS MoCA.

One of the floors of the museum was entirely devoted to Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s installation piece, Pulse, which involved museum visitors interacting directly with the art projected on the walls, or in one part’s case, a person’s pulse would determine the flashing of the lights in the exhibit hall. It was interesting to see this contemporary art museum contrasted with MASS MoCA, and it was clear that MoCA benefits from the sheer size of its campus, since the Hirshhorn only had a few exhibits.

Our last museum of the day was the National Portrait Gallery. I decided to do a docent’s choice tour, which was interesting for the most part, since the docent took us to paintings not usually looked at or talked about as much, but since we didn’t have a whole lot of time here either, I made my own way to explore some of the other portraits and paintings. The museum doubled as the American Art Museum, so there were plenty of things to see. 

After all these museums, we went on an evening trolley tour to see more of the typical sights, and we had a really excited and funny tour guide, who made the tour even more special. It was nice to lean into the more touristy side of things for the evening and, in part, see how the United States decides how to look to the rest of the world, through the different monuments and memorials that dotted the district’s parks.

The next day was when we started exploring the arts advocacy portion of the trip in greater detail, with our visit to the National Endowment for the Arts, and our conversation with the Arts and Education director, Ayanna Hudson. It was interesting to learn more about the inner workings of the NEA, and being able to share our stories about how arts and arts education has changed our lives, and how it still continues to do so. One of the most eye-opening aspects of my visit was learning that the NEA is not the end-all be-all for arts funding that many people make it out to be. The NEA makes up only a part of arts funding in the United States, and focuses its efforts primarily on educational programs for K-12 students.

After this visit, we did a quick visit to the Library of Congress, where I was able to secure a library card and went into the large reading room. After that, we met with Faina Dookh, a member of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s legislative team. This was another opportunity to talk about our experiences in the arts, and advocate for how important they are in an educational environment. Dookh assured us that the arts hold an important place in Warren’s agenda.

The next day we started right out of the gates with probably my favorite museum, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, or NMAAHC. First, we met with the Security Director, Andrea Robinson, who gave an impassioned introduction to the museum, and its path to opening just over two years ago in 2016. We were then treated to an exclusive, in-depth tour of one of the museum’s biggest exhibits, before the museum opened for the public. The tour was given by Janice Ferber, who paid an incredible attention to the detail that went into the exhibit, and how so coherently covered the history of the United States, and how African-Americans played a crucial role. I was blown away by the sheer depth of the exhibit, and how despite the fact that we spent nearly three hours in that one exhibit, there was so much else we didn’t see. Of all the museums we went to, I’d definitely want to go back to check that one out the most.

After the NMAAHC, we went to the American History Museum, which, compared to the sheer breadth of exhibits and content in the previous museum, seemed to pale in comparison. There were still interesting and informative exhibits, but the two museums, although rather close to each other, seemed to paint very different pictures about America’s history. It was intriguing to be able to get this comparison, and it informed my thinking about how the United States chooses to represent itself.

The next day we were allotted some free time for the morning and most of the afternoon. After getting some late breakfast, my friend Meri and I ventured to the National Gallery of Art, which was another sprawling institute of art spanning hundreds of years. There was so much to see, and Meri and I definitely got lost a few times. My favorite section was of the French impressionists, and the museum had its fair share of American impressionists as well, including one of my personal favorites, John Singer Sargent. This was another museum I would love to dive into given just how much art there was, and that Meri and I for sure did not see it all.

We capped off the day with a very special visit to the Kennedy Center, which included a backstage tour of the opera we were seeing that night, Eugene Onegin. The backstage tour was incredible, and gave me a sense of how much work goes into each production. I did a lot of theater in high school and earlier in college, and I was still in awe of how hard everyone works to put on a great show.

Building off this, our final day on the trip was spent at Wolf Trap National Park. Wolf Trap is unique because it is the only national park in the country that doubles as a performing arts center. A few people gave us the rundown of how Wolf Trap’s internship and apprenticeship program. Afterwards, we were given a tour of the park’s facilities, including the Filene Stage, where events from rock concerts to operas are performed.

In all, this trip was an incredibly rewarding experience that I felt lucky to be a part of. It gave me a deeper understanding of how the arts and culture policy in this country works, but also gave me the opportunity to explore some of the finest museums in the world, which I only want to see more of!