Over one of my breaks, I went back to Chicago with my mom to visit family. One of our traditions every time we visit Chicago is going downtown and spending some time at the Art Institute. However, it had been several years since I was in Chicago, and because of how much older I was during this most recent trip, I felt like it was the first time I was able to really appreciate the art. We were able to see some really incredible pieces, everything from Hokusai’s Great Wave to a collection of paintings by Claude Monet.

When I was younger, I read a book where a girl went to visit her uncle, who turned out to be Claude Monet. He showed her around his garden, and she learned about painting and the importance of doing art. When she took the train back to her normal life, all she could focus on was thinking about the garden and making her own art. While I am now in my 20s, I came back to the message I took away from this book the second I set foot in the museum. This feeling of needing to create and learn more about art really impacted me as I observed all of these incredible pieces over the years and learned about their unique histories. I will go back to the Art Institute this Summer, and I hope to learn even more from the exhibits and find some new exhibits. I would also like to start doing art for fun, not just for work, and will hopefully integrate the practice of being recreationally creative into my life more.

Pictured upper left to bottom right: Aggregation by Chun Kwang Young, the Hartwell Memorial Window by Agnes F. Northrop, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, and Water Lillies by Claude Monet.