Last week, I ventured to the New York Historical Society Museum where they were having a special exhibit on Abraham Lincoln in New York. I was surprised to see so many artifacts in display from Lincoln's time that still looked intact. It was great to see how one of the greatest presidents in American history had so much influence and events that occurred right here in our city. The place where Lincoln said his Cooper Union speech still exists, and I've actually passed by it on my way to St. Mark's place.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA yet, but I hope I get to. (I had to do a lot of work this weekend.) I just think that Tim Burton is a great artist/director/producer with his macabre yet comical imagry and his eccentricity. Although the only movie of his I know I saw was The Nightmare Before Christmas, I do hope one day to see Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, and Beetlejuice, among other movies.

Last week, I visited the New York Historical Society with a couple of friends. At the museum, I visited the Lincoln exhibit and the John Brown exhibit. I had never used my cultural passport to get into any museum free, this was my first time. It was quite amazing to have VIP like passes within my possession. Throughout my life, history was never a part of my interests, but I was clearly fascinated with some of the valuables that they had within the exhibits.

The class went on a tour of the cubism exhibit at the MoMA. We looked at several different paintings by Pablo Picasso. One that stuck with me was "Girl with a Mandolin." It's an oil painting made by Picasso in the early 1900s in Paris.

Since my recent trips to the MoMA, I've been thinking a lot about previous class discussions regarding how "art" is defined. When I walked around the museum I saw everything from drawings to paintings to sculptures to furniture. It seems so hard to distinguish what is art and what is simply a functional accessory to everyday life. In an art class in high school we watched a video about design, and I remember listing to the teacher all the different forms of art.