{"id":2943,"date":"2026-10-07T03:58:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T03:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/?p=2943"},"modified":"2026-10-07T04:06:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T04:06:32","slug":"skylands-museum-of-art-in-lafayette-new-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/skylands-museum-of-art-in-lafayette-new-jersey\/","title":{"rendered":"Skylands Museum of Art in Lafayette, New Jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Typically, if I’m in Sussex County, you’ll find me at The Sterling Hill Mining Museum<\/a> to take a mine tour, The Franklin Mineral Museum<\/a> to collect some glowing rocks, bucolic Lusscroft Farms<\/a> for a hike, Vernon Brewing<\/a> for a craft beer and a savory food truck meal, or Brick & Brew<\/a> for a delicious burger. Maybe a visit to the Franklin Mineral Rock and History<\/a> rock shop for a new rock. Maybe a visit to The Gingerbread Castle<\/a> or the Stromatolites<\/a> in Hamburg. Maybe a trip to the top of Route 23 to grab some tomatoes and a watermelon from the guy who has the fruit stand near the entrance to the quartz crystal collecting location. Maybe the 4-H Fair. Maybe a secluded lake for some peace and newts. There are plenty of ways to amuse yourself in Sussex County. <\/p>\n

July 25, 2026 I was driving around looking for things to do between the things I already planned on doing. I tried the old “points of interest near me” search on Google Maps. At the top of the list was “Skylands Museum of Art<\/a>“, the listing for which featured a giant purple cicada sculpture. That is all I needed to see! I already wrote about this museum on the cicada blog Two Cicada Sculptures at Skylands Museum of Art<\/a>, but there is more to the museum than cicadas, so I will cover the rest here. <\/p>\n

The museum includes both a building and a sculpture garden. Inside the building you’ll find three immaculate, well-lit floors of framed art and sculptures. It has the vibe of a large Colonia Revival house that was converted into a home for artwork. Many of the sculptures were by an artist named Ailene Fields, carved from stone and other media including skull-bird houses, abstract but meaningful masses, and whimsical animals. <\/p>\n

A royal frog (by Ailene Fields):
\n\"Frog <\/p>\n

A skull house with sneakers (by Ailene Fields):
\n\"Skull<\/p>\n

A mantis with human prey:
\n\"Mantis<\/p>\n

I relaxed on a bench surrounded by the visuals and sounds of art and nature — a welcome break from a day of driving.<\/p>\n

Another Royal Frog (Ailene Fields):
\n\"Frog<\/p>\n

A wonderful little creature:
\n\"SAY<\/p>\n

The caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland:
\n\"caterpilliar<\/p>\n

Pegasus (David Klass):
\n\"pegasus\"<\/p>\n

If you’re in Sussex County and need a break from the concrete world of zinc mines and burgers, visit the Skylands Museum of Art for some fantasy and reflection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Typically, if I’m in Sussex County, you’ll find me at The Sterling Hill Mining Museum to take a mine tour, The Franklin Mineral Museum to collect some glowing rocks, bucolic Lusscroft Farms for a hike, Vernon Brewing for a craft …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-museums"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2943"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2963,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2943\/revisions\/2963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}