This fall semester, students in the advanced arts classes have been working on projects that are now installed in the Drake Art Gallery. Classes included in the art gallery installation are Advanced Photography and Videography, Advanced Painting and Drawing, Advanced Sculpture, and select Advanced 8th-grade Fine Arts. When deciding what to call the gallery, students brainstormed and voted on a name. The name they came up with was “Fridge Art”, with a second-place vote of “Mama’s Fridge”. These names were chosen as it was thought that the artwork put up on fridges was some of the most underrated artwork. Students were also tasked with designing a poster for the opening of the gallery, placing the posters throughout the school, and advertising the new project to students and faculty. The gallery had a silent opening in mid-November and will remain open throughout the month of December.

One student featured in the gallery is junior Duncan Lang. In the gallery, Lang has an acrylic painting with hills and a wide variety of colors for the sky that he made in his Advanced Painting class. When it came to the inspiration for Lang’s painting, he said, “I wasn’t inspired by any one thing in particular, though when starting my project, I basically just let it happen, as that’s when I do my best work.” Lang is excited that the gallery is open, and is even more excited that students programmed the opening.

Junior Harper Glass is a student featured in the gallery who is in the Advanced Drawing class. Glass did a watercolor painting of the highway exit she takes when she returns to her house every day after school. The painting includes the bridge that goes over the highway as well as a sign, and an exit off the highway. She painted the signs to be the same as they are in real life. Glass’s inspiration was from a lyric in the song Stick Season by Noah Kahan. The lyric being, “Because your voice trailed off exactly as you passed my exit sign”. Glass said, “The lyric represented moving past what is familiar to me, and moving onwards, as seen in the painting as the highway keeps going. The flowing watercolors in my painting represent the constant flow of the highway.” Glass is trying to take something that she knows and sees every day and use it to portray keeping up as life moves on.

The art gallery will be up for another month and has a variety of artwork. Everyone involved encourages anyone and everyone to come and take a look.

Gallery • 11 Photos

Thomas Kovarik

WORKING HARD. Students in the advanced art classes work hard to open the gallery.