Museum Review // New Britain Museum of American Art, Community Day October 2025

https://nbmaa.org/

  It had been a while since Quentin and I had been to a museum, but when I found out that the New Britain Museum of American Art was going to have an exhibit for Norman Rockwell I knew we should be there to see that.   The NBMAA also happened to have a Community Day (which has special events and lets everyone in for free, because art shouldn't just be for certain tax brackets) and so we went out because the other activities revolved around Polish Heritage Month and the LGBTQ+ Month.  

Once we got to the NBMAA we walked around a little bit, but then made our way back to the area where the New Britain Library had a table set up and there was a poetry workshop.   When we got the CT Art Trail Passport, it became a sort of goal to go to all these different museums, but now I am starting to feel that way about libraries.  I just want to see how every city and town in CT has their library set up and what else is going on there.   

The New Britain Library had some buttons already made, but you could also make your own button.  They also had some books which you could have for free, so I got what I think is a pretty neat book about Poland.  What's funny is Quentin had a school project several weeks ago about his heritage and now we are learning more and more about Poland when it won't count towards his grade.  But, yes, there is more to learn in life than just what is in school.

We also found the rooms in which there was a poetry workshop with Versatile Poetiq.   This was something I felt interested in not only for myself but to try and get Quentin into doing something that involves creativity and expression.  There were poems printed out, prompts, markers to color and a notebook to write in provided.  Quentin also completed a word search and I hope that in the coming months he'll have also filled up his notebook with poems.

From that corner of the NBMAA we went upstairs to explore the works of Norman Rockwell.  I've always kind of known who Normal Rockwell was and I'm familiar with magazine covers, but I never knew the process involved in making them.  Rockwell took a photo, sketched out a sort of rough draft of the photo and then made a painting which would find its way onto an edition of The Saturday Evening Post.  Perhaps today the photo would meet Photoshop, but for all of the photos I've taken I've never really thought about turning them into paintings.

There is a new Andy Warhol painting that we hadn't yet seen in the NBMAA and then we made our way over to the Guerilla Girls exhibit.   When I think about art, I don't always think about the artist, but the idea of most art (and I mean like 99% of it) being represented as white guys is accurate but not something I feel like is a good way to diversify art.   Maybe there could be a museum where every work is made by someone who has something that makes them different from the other artists in there.  Different backgrounds would certainly create different art and who wants to look at a bunch of art where you can't tell the artists apart.

In the big room there was some Polish history including a place where Quentin got to color his own flags.   There was one person there who was researching the history of the Polish people in wars and my dad seemed to really like him.   Our last stop inside of the NBMAA was to the cafe from some Polish food from Belvedere Cafe, which was delicious.

It was a nice day outside and we had never been to the park that is near the NBMAA so we decided to spend some time outside walking around.  My dad, who drove us there, first parked up on the top of the hill near the fountain, which seemed like it had a wedding going on up there.   I decided Quentin and I would walk down the hill because I had seen a baseball field when looking at the park area and I wanted to check that out, so my dad could drive down to park and meet us.

Quentin and I saw the back of a baseball player in uniform and wondered if he was going to a game, as we followed him past the bandshell and to the baseball field.  Not only was there a baseball game happening, but it was Central Connecticut State University taking on Fairfield University.  As soon as we got to the bleachers and decided we'd watch a bit of the game, the umpires came and started the game at 1:42pm.  

What kind of game starts at 1:42pm other than a game played specifically for me?  The weather was nice and as other people came and went, we ended up staying for the entire game because it just didn't feel like it was going on for that long.    So what started with art, poetry and food ended with baseball which was not at all planned.  Sometimes I really do feel like I don't have to find these baseball games and they'll just find me, but it was a fun day in New Britain.