Every month we will be sharing with you an update from the artist-in-residency studio. Click here to view his September 2020 update.
Monthly Updates from our artist-in-residence, Charles O’Connell
NAHS News: Summer 2020
Hot off the press – the NAHS News featuring our report from Sheboygan North High School Art Department. Being a NAHS Chapter has made a difference on how our students view and share the world of art with their fellow students, teachers, staff, administration, and district.
“Reflections on this Moment in Time” – an Art Foundations 4 online exhibition
Galleries, arts center, artist run spaces, and art museums have all closed since mid-March due to the pandemic. Many of which canceled or postponed their exhibitions and events until further notice. At Sheboygan North High School, we have an exhibition space called NHS ARTifacts Gallery, which showcases all of our students’ works from across all content areas. To continue our programming, we’ve put together an online exhibition featuring new works by our Art Foundations 4 students.
The Sheboygan North High Art Department believes that art should be shared beyond the walls of our school. Nowadays, art can be shared through various platforms, many of which are now being used online. We experience art from all over the globe through virtual studio tours to ZOOM artist talks, augmented virtual art exhibitions to social media. This exhibition, “Reflections on this Moment in Time” provided our Art Foundations 4 students the opportunity to use art as a way to reflect, respond, and connect to what is happening right now through their art, their creativity, and their perspective.
Exhibition
Featured artists
This piece shows the reality of what it feels like through the difficult times of quarantine. We are forced to social distance ourselves from others. Being stuck inside we must go virtual/online to work, chat and basically keep our sanity. We can go outside and go places, but we have to be careful because you never when you can catch the virus.
Abigail Beyersdorf, Stuck Inside, 2020, Prismacolor colored pencils on poster board, 9 x 8.5 inches
“Muffled”, which is a parody of Edvard Munich’s infamous painting, “The Scream” reflects my feelings during the coronavirus pandemic. Each day this pandemic goes on I feel like I want to scream. I tried to capture this feeling in the painting. The man’s mask which covers his scream represents how China covered up the virus and how trapped we all feel in isolation from others. The river behind the man is polluted and filled with radioactive waste and the bank on the left is full of graves. The man wants to scream out against all the injustice that is being done to the world and to himself but can’t… all because of the mask.
Ted Wind, “Muffled”, Acrylic paint on paper, 10 x 8 inches. 2020
I decided to draw a doctor with a mask on. I wanted to do this because doctors are so important in this crisis. They are saving lives and I wanted to represent that in my drawing. They are heroes. I added paint on the mask to make it pop and to represent how important it is to be safe and to not get infected. On the background I painted it a dark red color because the coronavirus is that color and I wanted to have a dramatic feel. Finally, the doctor is in a side view because it makes her look determined and ready to face the disease.
Emily Fisher, “Hero in Disguise”, Pencil and acrylic on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2020
The intent of my artwork was to show negative emotions of the whole covid-19 situation. I wanted to symbolically put objects to represent parts of our lives where we are losing. I put in adjectives for each object to show emotions. Finally, I rarely get migraines, but when I do, there are lots of fuzzy, and flashy colors in all peripheral vision. I tried to represent that on the edges of the piece. I did that because when I get these migraines, it gives me an intense headache, like the virus. I get blind spots wherever I look, hence why I called it, Losing Vision.
Erik Mujkanovic, “Losing Vision”, Sharpie and acrylic on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2020
My drawing is about when I go to with my dad to Lake Michigan. I saw some big waves while it was nice out. I see people walk.
Samantha Wood, “Lake Michigan”, Markers on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2020
This painting communicates how I feel about the coronavirus. I’m upset.
Anthony Eckert, “Upset by the Day”, Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 10 inches, 2020
The purpose of the artwork I created was because when we were being quarantined I realized that everyone must wear a mask when they go outside or go shopping. I heard that kids at age 1-9 can’t go shopping because they might get infected by other people in the stores.
Anny Chang, “The Mask of Quarantine”, Colored pencil on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2020
I wanted this piece to give people a very eery feeling but also help to maybe educate on the effects this is having on the United States. The fact we live in Sheboygan, we have been kept within a fairly safe distance from the epicenter of this pandemic. I feel that because of our distance from this we cannot truly feel the effects of the virus, and that’s why I want to show the effects through my art. I think my piece does a great job of displaying how vulnerable we are, no matter how big we build, we can still be crippled and sent into very hard times.
Spencer Collins, “Eery”, Prismacolor colored pencil on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2020
My intention of my artwork is to show how the world would look if the virus isn’t gone. It communicates people wearing a mask to be protected!
Andy Thao, “Covid-19 Burndown Takeover”, Pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2020
Processed with VSCO with c1 preset
I created a cartoon drawing of people hurrying to get toilet paper instead of looking for the cure. It communicates our society’s messed up priorities.
Mary Johnson, “Hidden”, Markers on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2020
My art piece is of a man looking out his window in quarantine. In this piece you can see the shaded black sky to create of dark and sad mood. You can also see very large buildings in the background to show a city with lights on in the buildings.
Justin Gmach, “Mood”, Colored pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2020
Through the difficulty and dark times we are facing right now, there is still hope for the world to return to its former state. The word “hope” resonates with this piece through the bright glow in the girl’s eyes. The restrictions of interacting have inspired me to restrict the tools I’ve used in this piece, resorting to my fingers, a ruler, and paint.
Luecy Xiong, “Hope”, Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 14 inches, 2020
In my art piece, I wanted to try to show how the whole world is struggling with the coronavirus. I made a collage of pictures of the Earth. All the pictures are news articles from all over the world. The Earth is also representing the shape of the coronavirus. The “land” is made up of the coronavirus showing every continent has it. The water and the Alert are made up of photos from different news stories. It also shows how so many healthcare workers are risking their lives by helping people.
Florence Butterfield, “Alert”, Collage on paper, 24 x 18 inches, 2020
This is an 8 x 10 inch painting that focuses on a girl. She is all alone and wearing a mask. She is surrounded by different shades of green, which symbolizes germs all around her. She looks a little emotionless or overwhelmed with everything going on in our world today. The point of this painting is to show how important it is to wear a mask and stay safe.
Aileen Zenk, “Stay Safe”, Acrylic on paper, 10 x 8 inches, 2020
This painting shows the feelings of fear, loneliness and uncertainty during the pandemic.
Amelia Redell, “Alone in Fear”, Acrylic on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2020
A COVID-19 Coloring Book (downloadable)
A note from Mr. Juarez
On March 17th, schools across Wisconsin closed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. I noticed a trend forming with higher education and how it would change education after Spring Break. Not knowing how this would affect K-12 public education and noticing an increase in online activity on social media regarding this pandemic and how it was going to change the infrastructure of art education made me think about our art students.
There is a group on FaceBook called Online Art Teachers. In this group, I reached out to an art teacher, Angie Hamele Szabo from Forth Atkinson High School, to see if I could use an activity that she created and assigned her students called YAY Art Bingo.
One of the drawing prompts that I kept as part of our version of YAY Art Bingo was Covid-19 is changing our world overnight and it is very surreal. Create a piece that captures your feelings and thoughts in this moment in history. At the time, I wanted my students to create a piece of art to fulfill the requirements of the project. Little did I know, that this pandemic would become our reality and change how we currently teach art.
The weekend before Governor Evers’s announcement stating that school would be closed until April 4th, I had somewhat of a plan.
The thing that I love about art is how it provides us with a way to express ourselves. It is a great medium to reflect and to make sense of what is happening. No matter where we live, we are all facing the same challenges.
How do we cope with what is becoming our new norm? In what ways can we find comfort in what we experience from our own homes? How can we use art to heal?
This coloring book is a compilation of drawings that my Art Foundations 2 and Senior Art 2 students created based on their thoughts, feelings, and their level of understanding surrounding this pandemic. It brings me joy knowing that art can be a way of escape even if it is for a moment.
This PDF can be downloaded and shared.
Courtesy of the Sheboygan North High School and contributing artists.
Mr. Juarez
Art Department Chair
Reception photos: Scholastic Art Awards at the Milwaukee Art Museum
On Saturday, February 8, the Milwaukee Art Museum hosted its 44th Scholastic Art Awards Ceremony featuring a diverse range of student artworks from middle and high school art students from across Wisconsin.
We are happy to announce that senior, Lily-rose Butterfield received a Silver Key in photography.
The exhibition will be on view in the Schroeder Galleria until March 15, 2020.
North High Art Department Art News for January/February 2020
On view: Johnson’s Mosaics at NHS ARTifacts Gallery
Mosaic Project 2019
January 24 – February 24, 2020
Students In Mr. Johnson’s Western Civilization class researched ancient Roman mosaics as part of their exploration of Roman History and created reproductions. Students were evaluated on their research and artistic creations including authenticity, technique and creativity.
Students created the tesseraes or tiles out of old magazines. The color saturation of the pictures in the magazines give the final mosaics texture and depth. The mosaics in this collection were selected through student voting and represent some of the best mosaics in terms of authenticity, effort, and creativity.
Reception photos: Artist-in-residence Jeanette Clawson at Sheboygan North High School & student poetry reading
On January 16, the art department hosted its 11th artist-in-residence reception at the NHS ARTifacts Gallery. This semester our staff and students had the opportunity to work with artist Jeanette Clawson.
Senior Hailey G wrote two poems in response to the artist’s mixed media works.
First poem
Rolling and turning
Growing and molding
Never completable
And end never attainable
Second poem
Piece by piece step by step
There’s never a start never a finish
Day by day growth goes on
Never a beginning never an end
Never completion
Only progression
About the Sheboygan North High Artist in Residency Program
est. 2014
The SNHS Artist in Residence Program supports and enhances the importance of visual arts curricular integration across all disciplines at Sheboygan North High School. It provides the North High community with a hands-on approach to the process of art making through its resident artists, continues to nurture community building, and to be accessible to SNHS teachers as a resource.
Artists selected for this program are at all stages in their careers and work in all media such as but not limited to: drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and mixed media.
This program has been supported through a grant by the Sheboygan Area School District, Kohler Foundation, Inc., and the Wisconsin Art Education Association.
North High art student featured in SchoolArts Magazine
Congratulations to senior Ashley E for being published in the February 2020 issue of SchoolArts Magazine. You can find her work in the Clip Card section of this issue.
About SchoolArts Magazine
SchoolArts is a national art education magazine committed to promoting excellence, advocacy, and professional support for educators in the visual arts.
Ceramic Workshop for North High Staff
On January 16, the art department hosted its first hands-on workshop for North High staff & teachers with the assistance from members of the National Art Honor Society. The workshop is divided into two sessions. The first session was to create a clay wall pocket. The second session, which will take place on February 6th is the glazing of the bisque ware.
nhsartdept.com 