The Arts

Sa Kler Moo ’22

Anna Abid ’24 Chloe Pascoe ’24

Finn de Rosier ’22

The arts The Arts program at the Albany Academies boasts the talents of the students it guides, teaches, and supports with Rich Johnson as the Fine Arts Department Director. “The changes in the Fine Arts program have been intentional;” Rich explains that the recent changes to the Arts program have been for the better, “We are careful to make sure the essential skills and techniques are there and then work to create a program robust enough to meet our Academies students where they are to then offer the best way to find their voice and creativity in the visual and performing arts.” The need for students to have an outlet is not only essential to their overall academic success, but their general wellness; they deserve a space somewhat detached from the often insurmountable stress and newness of high school to express themselves. Rich reiterates this aforementioned point clearly: “Best described by creator Adam Savage, it is giving students the opportunity to learn the idea of iteration: that the creative process is not one inspired step, but many steps, false-steps, reconsiderations, experimentations, sought advice, and even compromise, until something is created. By doing all of this, you learn new skills which will help you refine the processes and skills you bring to your next creative project, and learn more about who we each are.” While Rich is a leader and the director, there is something to be said for what the students have taught him. After all, where would a good leader be without learning from, listening to, and being inspired by their constituents? Rich says that he has “Learned how truly amazing, talented, focused, and compassionate our Academies students are. Their passion is palpable and their drive to excel, learn more and be better each day is inspiring.” And who can blame him when he’s seen students make films, individually choreograph a musical, and facilitate and assemble a series of visual art pieces that he says, “Would rival a professional show.”

But how has the pandemic affected the way fine arts is being taught to students? What has changed? Well, Rich says that it has brought him back to basics, or “The bones of what I teach,” and forced him to “relook at everything and what is truly the basics of our performing and visual art” just like it has forced us all to reevaluate what is essential and important, and what is not.

I think Rich explains best in his own words how creativity can come in all different shapes and forms, and how it doesn’t have to be intricately constructed art to be a meaningful and helpful aid to your contentedness:

“The best way to remind students that being creative is limited only by their imagination; that being creative can be a TikTok video, a sketch on a napkin, an intentional photo taken on their phone, a quick dance in the “Best described by creator Adam Savage, it is giving students the opportunity to learn the idea of iteration: that the creative process is not one inspired step, but many steps, false-steps, reconsiderations, experimentations, sought advice, and even compromise, until something is created.”

Annika Johnson ’23

Rich Johnson P’35, Fine Arts Department Director morning before heading off to school, or singing in the car? The pandemic has changed us all. It showed us that we are all human and that connection and communication is something we all need.