I’ve been feeling some frustration with my writing lately, like the form doesn’t quite fit the flow. I felt this itchiness a year ago, right before my writing overflowed into a new container- the empty shell of a newsletter I had set up years ago. It is so easy to focus on the gap between where I am and where I want to be […]
Read MoreI had planned on a summer of writing, but what I needed was a summer of reading. I needed rest, I needed pleasure, I needed spaciousness. I needed to go to the library and let myself be pulled to intriguing books on the shelves. I needed to let myself devour books with no other motive than pleasure […]
Read MoreWhen you’re sitting in your parked car, alone, in a pocket of quiet hidden between the commute and the grocery store, taking a moment to check in with how you’re doing, to get absorbed in your thoughts and also the big puffy clouds drifting across the sky, and you look at the car next to you and see a woman (another mom?) taking […]
Read More“You are all so humble,” he said, looking a bit confused. Just then, the Zoom breakout room ended, and I had to swallow what I had been about to blurt out, which was, “No, we’re all women.” In our conversation, where he had shared the pleasure of trying new online projects and seeing which ones found an audience, we had described […]
Read MoreWhen we asked our toddler if he wanted to go to the local science museum this weekend, he got really excited and said, “Yeah! We can press all the buttons!” This kid knows what he loves. It can be harder for adults to do that, to listen to that little voice that tells us how we *actually* want to engage with our environments. Museums can be […]
Read MoreIt felt like a waste of a morning, driving to Costco to return a toaster that had been delivered with a big dent in the side. But there I was, so I decided to look around and see if there was anything that would feel good about being there. And I looked up and I saw an enormous grid of lights illuminating absolutely everything in that massive […]
Read More“What I bring to the table is rich.” Those words are from Detra, the latest subject of a Humans of New York series. Her words keep sticking with me. They reveal a woman who knows her own worth, who isn’t waiting for permission to love how she shows up in the world. This past week, I’ve been trying her words on for size […]
Read MoreI went to a book club. (That sentence would once have been the preamble to a story, but in these pandemic times, it is the whole story. I went to a book club!) I could not get enough of all the new faces. In art, there’s the concept of the real thing, where reproductions or photographs cannot capture the essence of an original artwork […]
Read MoreI’ve had the curious experience recently of going outside with a question, and getting an answer. Yesterday, I was sitting by a river, feeling creatively stuck and wondering what would help get me unblocked. Bam! Three separate flocks of honking geese flew over me, one after the other. Oh, I needed community, people to create […]
Read MoreLast winter it felt like my creativity was buried deep. A seed, I hoped, not a corpse. All my energy was going towards surviving, staying afloat, and there was nothing to spare to make anything new. My energy had to be used to keep what was already there alive. Last spring brought the itchiness that comes when creative energy is building […]
Read MoreI did it! I submitted the examen doctoral, my PhD program’s comprehensive exam. I wrote and wrote for 80 pages about research on museums and experience and innovation and storytelling and interdisciplinary collaboration and money and imagination, and how digital fits into all of that. This was something that felt impossible. It’s been […]
Read MoreGoodness, the smell of tomatoes on the vine just gets me. I have a few tomato plants—grape and cherry—and when I get up close enough to pick my miniature harvest, that distinctive tomato-y smell wraps me up and takes me somewhere. I don’t know where exactly; I never had tomato plants growing up so I don’t think it’s a sense […]
Read MoreI visited the Château de Fontainebleau one October several years ago, when fall was in full force. My memories of that visit are flooded with the yellows of the trees in the grounds, the crisp autumn smell in the air, and the golden quality of the light that poured through the windows into the ornate rooms. This sensory immersion was an integral […]
Read MoreWandering around the apple orchard, I made art. I could try to tell you that I made this flower-covered apple wand for my son, but that would not be true. He was busy running down the orchard alleys with a long branch that had fallen off one of the trees, alternating between yelling “Hockey!” and “Vacuum!” My mom was […]
Read MoreI felt like I was in a David Hockney painting this week. My son and I spent a morning in the outdoor pool in our local park, and somehow we were the only ones there (besides the three lifeguards looking out for us). The turquoise water in the pool was still, except around my splish splashing toddler in lemon swim trunks and his […]
Read MoreA glimpse into my brain right now… People told me that being a mom would help me become skilled at getting work done efficiently in the pockets of time available for it. This has been somewhat true for me, but not in the way I imagined it, where I’d become this superhero work machine who could perfectly manage time and pump out […]
Read MoreI love getting up close and personal with a painting. At a distance, this painting of three cakes on display is simple, and quite satisfying in that simplicity. The artist Wayne Thiebaud came back over and over to this theme of commercially-produced Americana desserts over the course of his career (fun game: if you see […]
Read MoreI was tidying up a bouquet in my kitchen yesterday, salvaging the blooms that were still holding on. When I went to clean up the counter, I did a literal double take. The vegetal detritus I had been about to wipe away was an explosion of colors and textures, curly greenery and wrinkly poppy petals. It was so joyful. It made me […]
Read MoreThis photo was taken in 1883 by Thomas Eakins, a painter who used photography to study the human form. Here, two of his art students stand in front of a relief, in poses that echo the sculpted figures. Eakins used photos as a tool to help him make his paintings feel closer to life: “the camera was a teaching device comparable to anatomical […]
Read MoreImposter syndrome is raging fiercely in me. I am coming up against three academic writing deadlines. And as I gaze up at these huge mountains looming ahead of me, I find that I'm having a hard time lifting my feet to take the next steps forward. It feels like each individual step has the power to make or break my entire journey up the […]
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
IMAGINIBUS is a blog about playing in museums, with a focus on imagination and creativity.
This blog is a place to be inspired to use your imagination around artworks—and to see the art of your daily life.
When we engage creatively with art, museums can become playgrounds and laboratories to experiment with attention, mindfulness, and imagination. Interesting things happen when we use that museum gaze to look at our daily lives like a work of art.
Find more inspiration for playing with new ways of paying attention to your daily life here.
Hello! I'm Marina Gross-Hoy, a writer, Museum Studies PhD candidate, and mother currently living in Quebec. I take playing in museums very seriously.
Read more about the blog here.
Check out my newsletter on Substack to be inspired to see the art in your daily life.
