A Voice You Must Hear
Hi! It’s Laura! You were promised stories from voices younger and more interesting than mine – voices that show better than any number with a decimal point- the impact of museums on GenZ – this is that promise fulfilled.
This is the first of three My MUSAY Moments stories from the gifted writer Darius Coleman….ENJOY and thank you for supporting MUSAY.
My MUSAY Moment: The Frist Art Museum -Nashville, TN
My Ex loved museums.
I know that it’s pretty weird to start off the first blog article I’ve ever written with that statement, but that’s the honest-to-God truth. I liked art museums, though it was hard to get me out of the house to go to museums that weren’t guaranteed to be good. But she loved to go.
She’d drag me by my arm from history to art, and then back to history.
Looking back, so many artists have stuck with me, whether they were poets or photographers or painters or anything and everything. And for the first blog post under the MUSAY umbrella, I figured it would make sense to talk about my favorite moments and stories in museums over my entire life.
This is my MUSAY Moment.
Early a.m. Frist Art Museum – L. Del Greco 1.31.24
Frist Art Museum, Nashville TN, 2023
I had a friend who used to work in the children’s part of the museum. Sometimes on days where I had nothing to do, I’d bus over to mess with her. She supervised a part of the kids section where children would paint watercolor with her. It was super cute.
One of my favorite memories is me and a couple of kids painting a sunset together. Now, some of them had weird colors in their sunsets (I remember asking a kid, “Is that green? In the sunset?” and he responded, “I like gween.” I nodded because I understood it on a spiritual level.) but that didn’t matter to me. It was the equality of those moments. How simple life can be when we appreciate the beauty of it, just coloring what we envision the big star in the sky to look like at its prettiest.
And then a kid would drop a brush and cry, and I stifled a laugh as my friend hurried to fix it.
That same museum another time I visited had an African exhibit going on the first floor showing off paintings and drawings from Black and African American pockets of culture and experiences that could only be caught in snapshots of collages or paintings.
There wasn’t a specific work of art that I looked for that ignites this memory. I think it was just the calmness of the room itself. There aren’t many places that 19-year-old me would go to on a regular basis to just…appreciate something. There is something special in the collective silence of awe, not just for the piece itself but for the amount of work and time that you know went into said piece.
I remember this trip mostly for that moment. I wanted to make people feel that with my own work. That sense of wonder and interest that infiltrated kindred spirits with their own individual lives was something I yearned for more than anything.
When I talk about MUSAY, some people continue to ask me why I am a writer under its umbrella. What made me believe in MUSAY so much, and what made them believe in me? MUSAY is more than just caring about a museum, but caring about the joy and teachings that museums have represented to people for hundreds of years.
This blog will represent more than just a place to talk about random things. It’s a host for the stories and spirit of millions of dreamers, creators, artists, and enjoyers of the arts. A place to get a quick fix of information told to you in a fun, interactive way.
We hope you enjoy it. And thank you.
This was my MUSAY Moment
About Darius Coleman
Darius doesn’t just see the world – he feels it – deeply. He takes it in so it can surprise him, challenge him, and ultimately inspire him to dream, to write, to create. Whether it’s prose or poetry, sports or culture Darius’s voice is one you must hear. A 2025 Magna Cum Laude graduate of Tennessee State University’s School of Mass Communications, Darius Colemen is only getting started and MUSAY is overjoyed he’s starting here.
© 2025 MUSAY Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
About MUSAY
MUSAY is an App that transforms phones from isolation devices into discovery tools to connect people with cultural experiences they never knew they needed—creating community around shared moments of awe while helping cultural institutions thrive.
MUSAY believes people, especially Gen Z, deserve more than endless scrolling through other people’s lives and has engaged them in its design process. The result is an App that gets people off their sofa and off their screen by helping them find things to do that fit their vibe; with all the things to do being at museums.
