As an incoming freshman, you have so many class choices. In my freshman year, I chose to start my journey with art classes, and I haven’t stopped since. With art, there are several ways to express yourself and be creative, and at Triton, we have many options to choose from to tap into your “creative side”.
Growing up I was heavily involved in the arts, from playing and creating music to dancing, and of course drawing and painting. As soon as I began my high school journey, I started enrolling in all of the different art opportunities I could.
Art is an important aspect of the growing mind, especially for students. Allowing students time, space, and materials for creative expression can lower stress, improve memories, and make them feel more socially connected.
According to the article, “The Arts: Meaningful Impact on Youth and Community” By Lisa Moore on artswin.org, art impacts youth engagement and development, the community, and cultural diversity and inclusion. Students who are highly involved in the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement than those who aren’t. Economically, The non-profit art and culture industry earns over $166 billion in economic activity annually and also supports around 4.5 million jobs.
Art also empowers those to explore their cultural identities, express their voices, and preserve tradition. In the article, “The Decline of the Arts in Schools: A Call to Action for the LHS Community” written by Joshua
Ridolfi, around 55 percent of schools in America have cut or massively decreased funding for the arts. With this, students lose so much potential benefit to not only their lives within school, but outside of school as well.
My Art Journey
Over the last three years, I’ve taken three different art classes, all with Mrs. Toni-MacDonald-Fein. The first art class I took was Art Studio One, which consisted of the basic skills in drawing, painting, and printmaking. Most of the work I did was done on paper and was 2D. Some extra things in this class included mixed media work, design, collage, and art history. This class was a peaceful break in my day; it allowed my mind to slow down and focus on the sketch or painting I was working on all whilst having meaningful conversations with my neighbors. Every day we would come into class, grab our sketchbooks off our shelves, and work on our daily sketch prompt. This was something I enjoyed, but over time, it slowly got repetitive, and I wanted to do more.
In my sophomore year, I decided to move forward and take the next “level” of art, which happened to be a 3D studio. 3D was an introduction to the techniques and practices of three-dimensional design. I was able to gain an understanding of how to work with 3D space and explore different materials and design problems. I created several things in this class, such as a mug that I etched a design into, did woodwork, and created a watermelon out of a cardboard box. This sparked my creativity, having me make something out of almost completely nothing. It used aspects of Art One as well, such as having to draw out and sketch all of our ideas while planning.
Normally, ceramics is a senior-only class, but if you take two art classes in your freshman and sophomore year, you are allowed to take it in your junior year, and that is what I did. Ceramics allows students with little to no experience with clay to learn a wide variety of techniques that allow them to explore and learn solutions to conceptual problems. We do hand work and wheel work and learn the fundamentals of three-dimensional form. This class has been a whole new world to me. After taking two very different classes during my underclassman years of high school, my world of art changed. Ceramics one is a very “get your hands dirty” kind of class. You start with a ball of clay and are then challenged to make a piece of art out of it. This class is artistically challenging and mentally challenging, to say the least.
After being able to experience a ceramics class, next year I hope to enroll in Ceramics Two, which takes students’ pottery skills to the next level.
Thinking back on all the best and worst moments of my art career in high school, there are countless things to harp on. Art one was the beginning. Although I enjoyed it, the class began to feel tedious and sort of repetitive in a way. It was all work on paper mostly, and not much out-of-the-box, hands-on work. That was what led me to three-dimensional art studio. This class was immensely challenging with working around different experimental obstacles and problems. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was faced with new forms of art almost every week. But still, something was missing for me. Those two years were all in the plan to take ceramics one. Ceramics class is the most relaxing, yet at points most frustrating class I have taken. It’s just you, the clay, and your imagination. It pushes me to think past my limits, and quite literally “out of the box”. But despite the hardships, I would take ceramics class every period of the day if I could.
