The Art Department is Essential for Student Expression

The Art Department is Essential for Student Expression

Walking down the halls of the school, students are never at a loss for something to look at.

The walls of the school are constantly plastered with posters and fliers. More importantly, though, there are the products of the school’s art department. The paintings, drawings, sketches and photographs turn bland walls into something to be admired and awed by everyone. And none of these would be possible without the art department. The pictures on the wall are not the only things that the department offers the school though.

It provides student artists with a chance to enhance their talents. It provides the artists with training in various media including acrylic paints, chalk pastels, clay, photography, and much, much more.

Through their artwork, the students can develop an extension of their voice and express themselves visually. The art department also displays student artwork throughout the building for the faculty and the community so that everyone recognizes the efforts and skills of the students.

Unfortunately, undue negative light has been shed on the department within the past month.

It is unfortunate to think that all of the accomplishments of the student artists and the teachers could be so quickly forgotten because of fifteen controversial drawings in the hallway. For fifteen years, the art teachers have displayed the nude torso drawings in the hallways with no complaints from the community, but after a single complaint from a board member this year, the principal demanded that the art teachers remove the drawings from the wall. Suddenly, the art department acquired a bad name simply because one person thought that drawings of nude statues were inappropriate.

How is it possible that with one comment from one person, people forget how often the art department has gone above and beyond the call of duty to help the school?

The department benefits more than just its own students. It affects the entire student body and the community itself. Several major projects have been sponsored and carried out by the department. One of those projects was a traveling exhibit celebrating cultural diversity. This project was done in conjunction with Parson’s School of Design in New York.

The department also participated in the Violence Project. For this, students created visual artwork and wrote essays and poems dealing with violence in American culture. This project was done in conjunction with the group called Parents of Murdered Children.