Marking their Mark

Annual festival showcases the creativity of Fine Arts department

By Aly Wittig Staff Reporter

The Francis Howell Central Art staff and students have been stapling screens to frames and lathering them with the thick orange goop known as emulsion to screen-print, pressing and painting designs onto bags, tshirts, and paper. They have digitally and physically painted and drawn masterpieces, they have formed ceramic structures by hand to create usable objects as well as sculptural pieces and then so much more since the beginning of the school year to present at the 2023 Fine Arts Festival. The festival will be held Friday, March 31st in the cafeteria.

This National Art Honors Society (NAHS) annual tradition houses new creative visuals every year from club members and art classrooms. NAHS and the art department like to include interactive artistic projects and activities for guests to participate in, which they tend to change up a little every year.

“This year, we’re going to do shrinky dinks--little stain-glass looking shapes–so that they can walk away and take them with them. We’re going to have the mural, of course, for people to draw on. And Mrs. Clayton is going to do some large scale doodles on these big cube sculptures for people to color.” Ceramics and Sculpture teacher, Michelle Ridlen said.

Similarly, Intro to Art teacher and Art Club sponsor, Lisa Harlan, has also planned activities for FHC students and families to participate in.

“I always do a cookie decorating table, but this year we’re doing it a little differently. We’re gonna carve Oreo Cookies, instead of adding icing and frosting to sugar cookies. So we’ve been practicing with toothpicks and plastic knives and Starbucks stirrers, so we’ll see how it goes!” Harlan said.

As for medium specific work, each teacher will be displaying handfuls of art from each class they teach.

“The first unit we do is called ‘Love Explained.’ So that’s a sculpture project that we always start with. So we’ll see those again. Ceramics 2 is working on creating some sort of shaped vessel that has an expressive face to the side. And then after that, we’re going to be doing anamorphic busts–a combination of an animal and a person–but they’re taking longer than expected on the expressive vessels. So I don’t know if we’re gonna have time to have those finished and painted for the Fine Arts Festival.” Ridlen says.

Comparatively, drawing and painting teacher, Judy Russell, will be showing off self expression work from her classes.

“In both of my drawing and painting classes when we do self portraits we initially focus on technique and how to get your proportions correct. But that’s only secondary to the idea of like, true identity or exploring parts of your identity. The self portraits that these students make are always incredibly expressive of who they are. So we talk about that a lot and I think that is why they’re really successful. Because when they create them they’re kind of getting in touch with a part of who they are through the process of creating a self portrait.” Russell said.

Senior and NAHS member Maddie Arle has multiple works featured in the show including several ceramic pieces and a personified fox made with colored pencils for Russell’s drawing class.

“The project was giving animals human characteristics. And so I tried to portray the typical ‘sly fox,’ kind of thing. And so I sketched it out. And then I just slowly started adding in certain colors and then just, over time, built up more and more detail to it,” Arle said.

Arle’s teachers have been collecting pieces from her since August with the hope to display them at the festival.

“I’m excited about it. I mean, my art being featured in the [Fine Arts Festival] makes me feel kind of special. I’m proud of my work and I enjoy it.”