Our current art students are learning about different forms of art to better express themselves. Ms. Rebecca Vickers, MUIDS’ Head of Fine Arts, explains what her students are learning and how it’s helping them learn about who they are, and most importantly, who they want to be.
In AP Art students’ first unit, Sea Change, they collaged variations of ink wash drawings inspired by what they saw as past, present and future versions of themselves together to create a composition that could communicate an understanding of their identity as a moving, changing, growing entity. They utilized art and design elements such as line, value, positive and negative space as well as transparency and opacity to visualize a feeling of movement and change within their work. The collages were paired with self-portraits captured in photograph that explored the addition of text to communicate who they have been, how they see themselves now and who they hope to become.
G12 AP Art student Jill (not her real name) shared that, “The piece that I have made for my ‘past’ is a picture of a window with raindrops. My favorite mythology that my mother told me and I always asked her to tell me again is about the angel of lightning and the giant of thunder. I love it when it rains so heavily that the whole town’s electricity goes down. My sister would complain about how she can’t do her homework, my mother would be upset that she couldn’t watch her favorite television program and my father would have to take out candles and light one for each of us. It’s a little inconvenient but I like the way that at that moment everything would go silent, like time has stopped.”
“The wings in the artwork represent my thoughts. They cover my true appearance and show who I truly am. In the future, I wish to see myself as brave enough to express my ideas and be confident to show them as a part of me, unfraid of what other people will think. In the artwork, the wings are sprouting from my back, ready to fly.”
G12 AP Art student Jan (not her real name) shared that, “Part of my past that I value a lot is my memories of my past two years with my friend at MUIDS. As time goes by we learn more, see more and understand more. So our fixed boxes of thoughts begin to break into a connected line. Our ways of thinking change and we perceive the world differently from before. The future is fun to think about but there is also pressure, it is my biggest unknown and the hardest question that I cannot answer yet. So, I portrayed myself in the future as abstract shapes with my name in different languages on my body. I can become anyone or anything, even someone I have never thought of before. No one knows who I will become but I will still be me, Emmy.”
G10 art students also explored the photographic portrait combined with text to express past, present and future versions of their identities. They are currently working on drawings and paintings inspired by their interpretations of who they are.”