I would like to begin this post by saying that I haven’t been on a field trip since middle school, so please excuse my over-excitement.
I’m taking a communication class called Media Aesthetics, and we are currently studying street art. We have been doing lots of readings on street art and watched a couple of videos on it as well. But what better way is there to study something other than to go and see it in person? And that is exactly what we did! My professor organized a field trip to Norfolk’s Neon District, which is covered in street art. We went on the trip last Thursday and had a great time. When we got there, we were allowed about an hour and a half to roam around the city and admire the artwork. There was so much amazing street art! There was everything from tags, which is the basic “so and so was here” graffiti, to fully painted murals.
This field trip was beneficial in many ways. We spent so much time learning about street art in class and so little time actually realizing that it was all around us. It was good to leave campus and view the world outside of Christopher Newport.
This field trip made me appreciate street artists because I was able to see how huge and detailed their artwork was and I know that it had to have taken them a very long time on each piece. The trip also made me appreciate art as a whole. There are a lot of things that I saw out there, like stickers, that I probably wouldn’t have considered art before.
Walking through the city made me pay attention and look for small details that would easily be overlooked, like tiny drawings in the cement tiles on the ground that you normally just walk over and never stop to admire. Overall, the field trip was an eye-opener for me because I live 20 minutes from Norfolk and never paid attention to how much art was all over the city.
This field trip is definitely one of my most memorable moments thus far in my college career. Who knew that field trips were still offered in college?!
