Visual connection Bangor High seniors to carry art interest beyond final project

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It’s late on a Friday morning, and the halls of Bangor High School are packed as classes change and students rush from one end of the giant building to the other, talking about plans for the weekend, homework, and, most important, graduation.

On the winding walk from the front office to the art department, the crowd thins out, but even with fewer students around, the air is heavy with anticipation. If the strappy tank tops, flowery sundresses, T-shirts and shorts don’t give away the fact that summer vacation is less than a month away, the talk of marching practice will. “Senioritis” has struck. Hard.

But the 12 seniors (and one junior) in Kal Elmore’s Advanced Placement art class still have work to do, and not too much time to do it. They have paintings to frame, drawings to finish, computer graphics to manipulate and oil pastels to blend so they’ll be ready in time for the Bangor High School Student Art Exhibit at the Bangor Public Library. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 tonight at the library, and the works will be on view through June 28.

Their work will share display space with students taking classes in photography, printmaking, sculpture, painting and drawing at the high school.

Some of Elmore’s students are working to finish their final projects – each must leave a piece for the school to keep. Some are in a rush to finish a painting or drawing for the show because they sent their best work to the College Board as part of their AP portfolio, which could earn them college credit. Some, such as Krystal Williams, are just trying to frame an existing piece.

“I moved here from a high school that didn’t even have an art class,” Williams said as she hammered a red, wooden frame onto a painting tentatively titled “Trees.” Williams earned a scholarship to study art at the University of Maine this fall. “It’s been great. At first it was a challenge, but in the long run it was great because I had all this work for a portfolio.”

As part of the Advanced Placement course, students must submit a select number of original works, along with 36 slides, for consideration by the College Board. The College Board, which administers SATs and the like, offers the Advanced Placement program at high schools throughout the country in subjects ranging from fine arts to chemistry. If students successfully complete a rigorous course of study, they are rewarded with college credit. Many of them use this credit to knock off an elective or to take care of a core class. But most of Elmore’s seniors plan to continue their studies in art, so the credit may help them meet their major requirements a little earlier.

“It’s an amazingly large group this year, but that’s just a coincidence,” Elmore said.

In an average year, one or two students in the AP class are serious enough about art to study it further. This year, nearly all of the seniors in the class who plan to go to college next year also plan to study art in some capacity – if not as a major, at least as an elective. Elmore attributes the high number in part to chance and in part to a change in attitudes that could make an art-based career more viable. But the key word is career.

“It’s a much more visual world,” Elmore said. “Computer graphics have been a big factor in that. I think it’s a better market today for students who are interested in art, but I think you’ll still see very few students who are making the commitment to be just an artist. There’s a change and yet, most of them have grasped onto more career-oriented possibilities.”

Mariah Scee, who will attend Rhode Island School of Design this fall, is one of the few who plans to study art for, well, art’s sake. Parsons School of Design was her first choice, but a hefty scholarship from RISD changed her mind.

“I couldn’t say no,” Scee said as she painted equations onto a mural of Albert Einstein. “Without the programs they have here, I wouldn’t have gotten into those schools. I know students who are really good at art but they haven’t been able to develop the skills to make a portfolio.”

Compared with other public schools, both in Maine and other parts of the country, Bangor High School’s art program is unique, Scee said. BHS is a large school with one of the largest enrollments in the state, therefore it has the student interest, and the resources, to provide a comprehensive program. Three full-time art instructors teach 16 classes a semester, including seven introductory, or Art I, classes, along with the AP class, printmaking, sculpture, fabric design, graphic design, drawing and painting. Photography classes are offered through the school’s technology department. Next year, the school plans to add an art history course, and at some point Elmore and her colleagues hope to start a ceramics program.

“A lot of it is just the variety,” Scee said. “That gets more kids involved. The photography class has made a huge difference to me. Many schools don’t offer that at all. That, in conjunction with fine arts classes, is pretty amazing. It makes a big difference having these resources available.”

And the students definitely count Elmore as a resource. Tyler Brenton, who will attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston this fall, said his classes at Bangor High School influenced his decision to continue studying art.

“That wasn’t the plan to begin with, but I’ll be happiest that way,” he said. “I’ve always been somewhat interested [in art]. I became more interested when I came here. Mrs. Elmore has been very inspirational. She’s definitely my favorite teacher. … She’s very encouraging. She exposes us to a lot of different types of art.”

That exposure seems to have rubbed off on Ben Allen and Nick Maynard, who plan to attend Maine College of Art and Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla., respectively.

“I like van Gogh a lot,” Maynard said as he looked at a pen-and-ink drawing reminiscent of the famous painter’s swirls. “I’m kind of working with that style right now. I’ve been doing a lot of nature scenes.”

Krista Hall, who earned a scholarship to study studio art this fall at the University of Maine, was trying to find Plexiglas to cover a piece for the show. Her drawing, a striking contrast of soft and stark, was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art and John Singer Sargent’s portraits.

“They’re pretty different styles,” she said of the piece, which she made in her drawing and painting class, where she was assigned to duplicate a painting. “I didn’t want to do that because then it’d be just a copy. [So] I just created one of my own based on that.”

While Hall has always liked art, it wasn’t until this year that she really started to consider it as a career.

“I realized I wasn’t really liking anything else enough to want it as a career,” she said. “Even if it wasn’t going to make me all that money, it’s what I wanted to do.”

Kristina Minott isn’t sure what she wants to study when she gets to Clark University this fall, but she’s pretty sure art will be a part of it.

“I don’t really have any idea what I want to do, but they have a really great art program there so I know I’ll take classes,” she said as she blended paint stick into a sunset seascape for her final project.

Even Barry Barker, who will study sound engineering at the New England School of Communications at the Husson campus in Bangor, wants to include art in his schedule.

“I’m sure I’ll do something,” he said. “I always do.”

While Katie Mckelvie hasn’t decided on a major, she knows her studies at Bangor High School have made her a better artist. When she heads to Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the fall, she may dabble in interior design or architecture.

“It’s really grown through the years that I’ve been here – value, perspective,” Mckelvie said as she held up the two paintings that she will show in the exhibit, a somewhat abstract cat and a realistic painting of downtown Bangor. “It’s nice now that I can look back at the work I’ve done over the past three years and see the evolution – how it’s gotten more sophisticated, more real.”

While some of Elmore’s students have chosen to forgo a full fine-arts curriculum, they haven’t given up their artistic vision.

“I’ve always been exposed to art so I guess it’s just sort of natural that I’d continue things,” said Olivia Spyra, who plans to study landscape architecture at North Carolina State University. “I think what interested me in landscape architecture is I’d be able to … create a painting using our environment. Our environment becomes a canvas.”

Sam Kates-Goldman also plans to use the environment as a canvas. He will attend Evergreen State College in Washington this fall, and though the school has no majors, he is interested in ecological design, which combines environmental studies and urban planning.

“I don’t like separating my classes out,” he said. “I like how everything interacts.”

On this day, interaction means digital art. Using an iMac and PhotoShop, Kates-Goldman is turning a scanned image of a credit card into a statement by manipulating the account number on the bottom to read “I0AM0NOT0A0NUMBER.” He says it’s concept art. He used a similar technique for the invitations for the student show.

“I really enjoy working on the computer,” he said. “I was really glad to get it in my senior year. … I think it’s been pretty good practice.”

He’s not sure how much practice he’ll get with digital art in college, but he doesn’t see his interest in art waning anytime soon.

“I definitely want to have art involved with my life,” he said. “I’ll just kind of see what happens.”

For Elmore, the computer adds another facet to teaching art.

“Given the current state of business and the economy, there’s more demand for computer skills – visual and verbal – and I think we need to be preparing kids well for that,” she said. “I think we offer a good balance of programs, though. We offer a lot of choices.”

And if those choices inspire a love of art among her students, Elmore says, so much the better.

“I don’t go into it thinking I’m training artists,” she said. “If anything, I think an educated person should have an interest in the arts. It’s great fun when they can take the skills from here and use them elsewhere and make it work.”

Regardless of whether the students choose to continue their education in art, the student show is a time for them to reflect on how far they’ve come. Sometimes, Elmore said, seeing their artwork hung in a frame on the wall at the library is enough to make some students stand up a little straighter. Having an exhibit makes it “real” for them.

“It’s fun to see what’s possible,” Elmore said. “When you’re committed and willing to work hard, you can do a lot. Sometimes, there’s just these moments that click that can make a difference sometimes. … It’s a lot of work, but it’s an awfully important experience.”