WOODBURY — Students have many important projects throughout a school year. An AP Art student has one important project: a self-created question that she or he has to answer through artwork.
Nonnewaug AP Art students have chosen their focuses for their portfolios and are getting to work in Leeza Desjardins’ class.
Madison Willis is a senior AP Art student who says the class is different from other art classes at NHS.
“AP Art is different from any other art classes because you have to complete the project much faster, and you are basically doing your own thing,” Willis said. “Mrs. D will help and give her opinion, but you [the student] choose whatever medium and topic for your project you’d like. AP is also more of a personal choice.”
Desjardins, a longtime art teacher at NHS, agrees with Willis and said AP Art is different to teach than her other classes.
“It’s different from my other classes because it’s not teaching technique; it’s the students themselves exploring how to put emotion on paper,” Desjardins said. “It’s a fun class, [but] it’s also very hard because I don’t know what it’s like in [my students’] brains until it’s drawn onto the paper. It’s hard to translate and I can’t help them.”
AP Art senior Melanie Boria said she was inspired to choose her topic by noticing how different life can be from a different perspective.
“I was mostly inspired by noticing how structured life is for everyone, and you aren’t really given an option to get away from that,” Boria said. “When you think about survival necessities, you know you need food, water, and shelter. But you need money to survive, too. People are dying to something we entirely made up. Taking a step back and looking at it from that perspective made it seem very strange.”
AP Art Junior Kiera Jacobi chose her project on “The Absurdity Of The English Language.”
“AP Art is a lot more demanding,” Jacobi said. “There’s more of a timeline than other art classes and a big part of AP Art is making sure that all of your pieces fit together. Whether that means color, composition, or meaning, they all have to fit together.”
