Hannah Scholes and Layla Passman As you look around Gallery 2 each week, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that all the amazing work on display was made by students, some of whom you didn’t even know were artists. We sat down with Isabella Norris, who recently finished her senior art showcase with Maya Sibul, to discuss how the art program at Latin has helped her pursue her creativity and the inspiration behind her work. Q: Was there a overarching theme or something that tied all your works together? A: For me, when all of the work was finished I could look back and see naturally reoccurring trends. Things like geometric patterns, and skewed planes that I wanted to investigate by making the work in the first place. I was reading a lot about color theory and wanted to explore that in my own style. Q: Did you see the art gallery as simply somewhere to showcase what you’ve been doing, or did you see it more as a way to promote/ advertise your work? A: The shows are a great way for seniors to share with the community. I personally wanted to show people what I had been most recently working on. I guess with that, the artists is always getting some sort of publicity while being publicly displayed. Often, student artists don’t really have platforms to show their art, and members of the community may know a student for their whole high school career and have no idea they were interested or making art. It’s funny because this happened to me. Q: What would you hope people think of when they look at your work? A: I didn’t make any of it with the intention of getting a specific response. I hope that everyone had their own personal reaction to my work. If anything, I think someone could get a better sense of me by looking at it. Q: Do you think Latin’s art program has prepared you enough for showing your work in the real world? A: I think that the senior shows are really self involved and that gives students a lot of power to do exactly what they want. For me, was a really great learning experience. All of the pieces I showed were made in the fall semester as I came up with my college portfolio and was in a Digital Art ISP, so I did everything on my own terms. This freedom was really important to the way I was creating and the way in which I prepared for the show. I had a lot of work that could make a cohesive presentation, but I used the show as a deadline to explore some new things like a glass installation and boxes. As Isabella mentions, having an art gallery has an element of publicity within the community. The art galleries are one of the only ways that seniors can showcase a cumulative body of work that they have put together over their high school careers. However, only artistic students can take advantage of this opportunity. Do you think there should be similar opportunities for students interested in subjects other than art to showcase their work to the Latin community? Let us know in the comments below!]]>