Last year I took a solo trip to Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The museum, named after writer James A. Michener, is full of Bucks County history. The building itself is the former Bucks County Jail, and the museum is filled with art relating to Pennsylvania and Bucks County.

As someone who showed up to the museum on a Monday, I can tell you it is open Tuesday through Sunday. I contemplated a membership for free admission, but I decided to pay the $15 for a general admission ticket. The 40,000-square-foot museum may not be as expansive as others, but the curators make the most of the space, featuring amazing art ranging from sculptures to Impressionist paintings.

While the museum has compelling temporary exhibitions, I favor the pieces in the permanent collection. One of my favorite pieces is by John Foster called Ned’s Cigar Store. The oil painting depicts a storefront in Newtown, Pennsylvania, more than 40 years ago. I instantly recognized the town. Ned’s Cigar Store is still standing on State Street today. The storefront has changed over time, but the piece captures the hometown feeling and essence of Newtown.

My favorite parts of the museum are the sitting areas. The museum’s well-curated exhibitions compelled me to sit and stay a little longer. There is a smaller room at the end of the museum’s larger space where I sat immersed among the art on the wall for 10 uninterrupted minutes. It was amazing. In the Pennsylvania Impressionists exhibit, I took a seat to take in the large Daniel Garber painting, A Wooded Watershed. The approximately 10-foot-by-21-foot landscape mural covers the back wall and transported me into the woods of Pennsylvania.

At the end of my visit, I stopped in The Nakashima Reading Room, the result of the art museum commissioning Mira Nakashima, woodworker and architect, to design a memorial reading room in honor of her late father, George Nakashima. Sitting in the Japanese tea room setting was a quiet reprieve from the echoing halls of the museum.

As I was leaving, I contemplated buying a membership to the museum because I knew I would return.

— Caroline Craig, administrative & advertising coordinator