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Student work on display
Professional artists offered lessons
Friday, Sept. 25, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL
Huntingtown High School senior Patricia Brooks labels one of her art works Thursday at the opening of this month's student art show at CalvART Gallery in Prince Frederick. The gallery hosts a new student art show every month.
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Huntingtown High School joined the "going green" trend in a unique way: some of its students turned recyclables into artwork. Now that artwork is displayed at the CalvART Gallery in Prince Frederick through Oct. 2.
A reception for the exhibit, also featuring glass and pottery pieces among other types of student artwork, was held last week at the gallery.
"A lot of it has to do with recyclables; things we'd normally throw away," said Huntingtown High School art teacher Dona Baker, who coordinated the exhibit with guest artist Stephanie Garrison of Huntingtown.
Baker explained that Garrison, who specializes in fused glass artwork, was able to help her through a grant received from the Arts Council of Calvert County.
Baker said that students also had lessons from Calvert County-based artists Ray Bogle and Mike Morton on various pottery-making techniques.
Garrison said that she just started working with Huntingtown students at the start of the current school year, teaching them to create everything from pendants to dishes out of fused glass.
"They all had a blank pallet, which is a clear piece of glass, and they all approached it differently," Garrison said. " … We're using a different type of glass than I'm used to working with so it's exciting for me and the students."
Senior Liz Swigert incorporated summer nostalgia onto her fused glass plate, which displayed a palm tree.
"I really love the beach and everything [beach-related] so I wanted to put it on a plate," said Swigert, 17, who continued that her favorite products to work with are glass and clay.
"You can do so many things with them; there's endless possibilities," she said.
Junior Billy Hayden, 17, went the environmentally friendly route with his artwork, making a chair out of an old go-cart, as well as a sculpture of a man walking a dog out of metal.
It was also Hayden's clay bowl from which ice was being served during the reception.
He said he particularly enjoyed projects like the bowl because, "I like to be able to form something out of nothing."
Seventeen-year-old Tara Santarmes also went tropical with her artwork, creating a large fish made of Styrofoam.
However, in contrast, the senior also created an altered book titled "Perfection," which featured various clippings of women going through numerous life stages as portrayed by the media.
"[It's] about how you have to have plastic surgery and lose weight [according to pop culture standards], when you should really just be yourself," said Santarmes, who explained that she is currently testing the waters with several different art forms.
"I'm trying to find a specific thing that I want to work on because I think I want to [major in art] in college as well," she said.
At the reception, Kathy Sears, who is the executive director of the CalvART Gallery and the Arts Council of Calvert County, lauded the student artists for their accomplishments.
"One of our favorite things is our young artists program and our student arts gallery," Sears said, adding that professional artists often speak highly of the students' work.
