Week 3: Washington, D.C. Art and Culture

DC is one city that everyone should consider visiting at least once. However, after coming once you’d certainly want to come back because the area has so much to offer. It seems as though there are literally millions of things to do and see. This place is absolutely oozing with culture. As I walk to and fro on the street, it amazes me that there are so many different types of people here--obviously from many different walks of life, and I’m astounded by the immense diversity and all that it brings. There is so much art here in so many different forms. It’s hardly fair that so much character is packed into one tiny corner of the world.

I went to Macy’s at Metro Center, which is an area in the District that has some great shopping, but as I got inside the store, I kept hearing something that sounded like drums. I walked to around to find out where the music was coming from, only to find that a high school drum line was performing right in the middle of Macy’s. The kids played beautifully and their sound kind of enveloped the entire shopping center because no matter where I went in the store I could hear them. I thought this was really cool because it’s not every day that you can walk past the makeup counter in a department store and find a drum line. That’s just one example, but instances of art are literally everywhere, it’s as if you can’t help but be overtaken with them. Any day of the week you can find somebody singing, dancing, or playing some kind of instrument in the Metro station. On my way to this week’s class session, I walked through McPherson Square anda band was set up performing on a stage, right there in the park in the middle of the week.

In my twenty-one years of life I can count on one hand (not using all fingers) how many art galleries I have visited. On Saturday, I went to a gallery that housed tons of art; I saw more art in one building than I have seen throughout the course of my life. It was called Artomatic and it housed in a fourteen floor building, chocked full of every type of art imaginable (and some not so imaginable). There were music performances, runway models, I even saw body art. There were photographs, paintings, portraits, and sculptures. There was so much happening underneath one roof that there was no way I could possibly look at every piece.

Spending time in this wonderful city has helped me to take note of the simplest and most obvious forms of art that I never before realized were important. There are musicians playing their hearts out in the Metro stations and in the parks. I’m excited and proud because I feel like this is a great step in becoming a more mature and well-rounded person. What I’ve come to realize is the beauty of the smallest and most simple things in life.