April 29th, art 2 & 3 students woke up early Monday morning to take the 4-hour drive to Bentonville Arkansas. The students had to the opportunity to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The museum is surrounded by natural springs and nature. While following the trail through the woods the students were able to see white-tailed deer and had a great encounter with nature. The beauty of nature did not stop when students entered the museum. The museum holds amazing art as well as various exhibits for the students to explore. One of the exhibits the students had the opportunity to see was the Exquisite Creatures exhibit. The exhibit holds categories of nature and science in art form. throughout the exhibit, you will find work produced by naturalist Christopher Marley. Christopher Marley’s artwork is produced of specimens that have died from natural causes or been caught as fishing bycatch. The artist freeze-dries the animals and cases them in glass presenting them in a beautiful array of colors.
Another astonishing piece of artwork was Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room. The room is filled with mirrors and paper lanterns with color-changing dots. The relationship of the dots and mirrors results in an effect of mirroring that expands forever. The artwork is to “provoke a sense of boundlessness and transcendence through extreme repetition.”:
Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room―My Heart is Dancing into the Universe at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
The students ended their time in Arkansas hanging out with friends, shopping, and getting a bite to eat around Bentonville square. The area included restaurants like the Spark café food truck (In ice-cream food truck), Tavola Trattoria, and Taco & Tamale Co. The diversity between restaurants gave students various options to choose from.
