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Beyond BC’s walls, students find hidden gems

By Gaveliers, The Gavel Media Team, on December 7, 2009 6:06 PM

By Lea Freeman -

Most Boston College students can agree: during our years here, we don’t spend enough time exploring the world beyond the Heights. We live on the brink of one of the most cultured and interesting cities in the world, yet most students seem to spend more time exploring the crevices of Bapst than venturing into the cultural nooks of Boston. Just a short trip from campus are two of the most fantastic resources the city has to offer, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) and the Isabella Gardner Museum.

The MFA is easily accessible via the T. The most convenient route is taking any green line train to Arlington, and taking the outbound E line train until the Museum of Fine Arts stop. The MFA does not charge admission for students at universities in the Boston area, and also opens its doors to the community for free one day every month. The museum offers free guided tours every Monday through Friday every half hour from 10:30 a.m. – 3 p.m., which leave from the visitor’s center and include Introduction to Museum Collections, Art of Asia, Art of Europe, Three Masterpieces in Thirty Minutes, Art of the Americas, and Art of Egypt and the Classical World.

Once a year, the MFA hosts a college night for students in the area to showcase all that the museum has to offer. It is free with a college ID and includes food, music and art. Although this year’s college night has already passed, be on the lookout for next year’s event.

For art enthusiasts, the museum is offering a lecture series called “Evenings with Creative Minds: Shapiro Lectures.” The next speaker, Thelma Golden, the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, is scheduled for Feb. 3 and 4.

The MFA also offers a series of three courses called “Picturing Music” given by James H. Johnson, Associate Professor of History at Boston University, and William Stover, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. The first course already passed, but “Music as Abstraction” will be given Tuesday, Dec. 1 from 10:30 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, Dec. 2 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. “Music as Presentation” will be offered on Tuesday, Dec. 8 and Wednesday, Dec. 9 at the same times.

The MFA is currently featuring an exciting exhibit entitled, The Secrets of Tomb 10A until May 16, 2010, which is sure to appeal to anyone with an interest in history, ancient Egypt, or anthropology. What makes the exhibit unique is that it is an assemblage of artifacts discovered by a joint Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts archaeological expedition in 1915. The exhibit spans about four rooms in the museum, and includes model boats, painted coffins and a mummified head. The collection provides a truly fascinating history lesson of rulers, Gods and superstitions.

A short walk from the MFA is The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. Built in 1903, the museum maintains the original vision of its founder and namesake with its galleries filled with paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, and decorative arts from different cultures across 30 centuries. The museum is different from the MFA in that it feels more intimate and has no rotating collections; save for several exhibits, the museum is always the same, yet something different can be taken away with every visit.

The Gardner museum hosts a variety of events, including classical music performances every Sunday and the third Thursday of every month when the museum hosts Gardner After Hours, nights of live music, art, conversation, cocktails and more in an inviting atmosphere.  Admission is $5 for students, and the next one is on Dec 17. It will feature a talk by artist Taro Shinoda, discussions about John S. Sargent’s portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, and a jazz performance by “The Annette Phillip Quintet.”

A current exhibit of interest at the Gardner museum is Taro Shinoda: Lunar Reflections, on view through Jan. 31st. His art engages themes of science, philosophy and our desire to investigate our place in the universe. The exhibition uses film shots taken of the moon from four cities around the world to show how we are all united under one night sky.

The MFA and the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum are just a glimpse of the many exciting things that students can see and do in Boston. There is also the Museum of Science, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Paul Revere’s house, the Historic New England Museum, the MIT Museum, and of course, the New England Aquarium. A journey down the green line is all it takes to discover some of the cultural attractions that Boston has to offer.