Sweet Success

by: Madi Bixler ’14 Senior Brynn Warren recently earned the highest score attainable on an Advanced Placement (AP) art portfolio.

After spending a year in an AP Art course, students at all schools are invited to submit a portfolio to the AP board for a formal evaluation and score. Their body of work is ranked on a scale of 1 to 5. Brynn’s portfolio, featuring Candy Wrappers, Imagination, Gourds, and Ring Pop, received a 5, the top rating.

In oil on canvas and mixed media, Brynn’s pieces — created during her junior year at LCA, under the direction of AP Art teacher Anne Blackburn — appeal to the “sweet” nostalgia of the snacks her audience, both children and adults, have eaten since they were young. “For children, they bring happiness as they think about their favorite candies,” Brynn says, “and for adults, who typically no longer eat candy, I want them to get a nostalgic feeling, remembering how excited they used to get when they were young.”

“When viewers see my work,” Brynn says, smiling, “I want them to remember the joy they felt from eating these treats.”

Her portfolio captures candy favorites such as M&M’s, Twix, Oreo’s, Ring Pops, and Milky Way. “I chose these snacks because I wanted to represent a variety that people from various backgrounds enjoy,” Brynn says. She employs carefully selected mediums to create a light, ethereal mood, and her work is filled with bright colors.

“Brynn’s pieces are mostly paintings, but her work was classified as a drawing portfolio,” says Mrs. Blackburn, “because she explored line, mark-making, tonality, light, and value, and because painting is also applied drawing.” “Although Brynn’s portfolio is whimsical, she worked tirelessly on it,” says Mrs. Blackburn, “often getting up before dawn or staying up late to add to her very detailed pieces.”

As the course progressed, Brynn shifted her focus from nostalgic foods to how a child might interact with them. “I wanted to show how children play with their food and how easily a child’s imagination mixes with everyday activities”— she laughs — “like eating,” she says. “In my piece with the Oreos and Legos [Imagination], I try to show how a child carried the made-up lives of his Legos into the dessert he was eating. I show how a child’s imagination blended the snack he was eating with the ongoing, made-up lives of his toys.”