Weekend at the Symphony
The lights dim in the concert hall. Silence fills the expectant air as the backstage door opens. Thunderous applause follows the maestro as he walks…
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts is located in the Fenway neighborhood in Boston. It’s next door to the Museum of Fine Arts and down the street from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Boston is home to a vibrant arts community, including local artist studios, galleries, and many different museums. The MFA is an enormous museum showcasing a variety of cultural, historical and contemporary work, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum houses the expansive art collection of Isabella Stewart Gardner in the preserved mansion that was once her home. There is also an addition to the museum, in which they rotate exhibitions of both historical and contemporary work throughout the year that is separate from Isabella’s collection.
There are many more museums and galleries throughout the city, including my favorite— The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. It’s located in the Seaport district, and it’s a nice walk away from South Station on the Red Line of the MBTA if the weather’s nice, but you can also catch the Silver Line from South Station to get there in minutes! Boston’s ICA is recently renovated and they’re always putting together new contemporary exhibitions, artist talks, DJ nights, and film screenings. For instance, every year I go to see the Sundance shorts with a friend of mine, and I always make time to go see their most recent exhibitions during the semester.
The SoWa Arts District, which is right by the Broadway stop on the Red Line, is a hub for the Boston art scene. SoWa is technically an abbreviation of ‘South of Washington’, but people just refer to it as SoWa. Many Boston-based artist have their studio space in SoWa (including many SMFA professors!), and it’s not uncommon for students to intern for artists in their Boston studios— I interned for a Boston artist last summer and learned a lot! There’s lots of smaller galleries in the area as well, and sometimes students can show in them— In my first year at SMFA, my performance class put together a pop-up exhibition in one of the SoWa galleries! Also, if you’re looking for something fun to do on a weekend, every month there’s a First Friday event where all the artists open up their studios and there’s often lots of good food and music!
There are also options to showcase your work on campus! The SMFA has its own gallery on campus, the Tufts University Art Galleries, which also has a branch on the Medford campus. The galleries exhibit both student work and work by professional artists throughout the year, and both undergraduate and graduate senior thesis work is showcased at the end of the academic year across both campuses. SMFA is constantly putting on shows of student work throughout the year, and students themselves often organize small shows both in and out of SMFA. Exhibitions have been known to happen in dorms, basements, the library— I even put on a show in the welding shop! The SMFA faculty are really encouraging about student work and student led exhibitions, and it seems like there’s always a new one underway!
Getting involved in the arts community can see intimidating at first, but most of it is just reaching out and meeting new people! The Career Center is really helpful for this too, especially if you’re interested in working in museums! Lots of students intern at museums throughout Boston, including all the ones I’ve previously mentioned! Museum internships and artist studio internships are especially popular over the summer, and there’s funding available if it’s an unpaid internship! Students don’t only find internships in Boston either, many students travel to different places to work at museums and studios. After my sophomore year, I interned at the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center in Vermont, where I learned how to carve marble and met a ton of amazing artists, many of which were also from the Boston art scene!
The lights dim in the concert hall. Silence fills the expectant air as the backstage door opens. Thunderous applause follows the maestro as he walks…
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