Jessica Bai ’16: Last summer, a number of Episcopal Academy students pursued their artistic interests by attending programs offered at universities both in the country and overseas. A few of the students who participated in these programs include Cole Grims ’14, Connie Maltby ’14, Nellie Konopka ‘16, Leah Marchant ‘16, Melanie Kovacs ’15, Zoe Kovacs ’14, and Brittany Belo ’14.
Both Konopka and Marchant attended the Moore College of Art Design, and together they made new friends and greatly developed their artistic abilities. “It was my favorite class I ever took,” recalled Konopka, “When you go to colleges and you build your portfolio, they love to see your drawings, so it just made me so much stronger in that aspect which I don’t really get to do here. For my figurative drawing class, it was a huge takeaway. My style changed. I felt like I went into the class focusing on doing super realism which I figured out wasn’t really my thing after about two classes. I came out with all this amazing movement and having a model is fun.”
For five weeks for three hours a day, she was able to meet and interact with inspiring children between the ages of seven and nine. “The kids were really fun because young children think differently than adults. They had the most creative minds. There was one kid who would draw monsters everywhere. We would ask him to draw a landscape, and he would draw the landscape and would put a monster in it,” remembered Konopka.
Marchant, who also attended Moore College, stated, “We were able to attend speeches about portfolios. The one that we got to go to was called ‘Portfolio Do’s-and-Don’ts,’ and you’re in a place with one of the admissions directors, and they show a power-point from the teachers at the actual university and what they wanted to see on a portfolio. I think that it was helpful to start building a portfolio and to actually know what people want to see when you show them your stuff.”
At the Savannah College of Art and Design, Belo participated in the Rising Star Program that involved students from the class of 2014. There, Belo did a couple of pieces for her design class and two videos for her film class that both went to her art portfolio. “I loved the school, it really helped me realize what I wanted to do because before I only wanted to do one thing which was fashion design, so now I know that I want to do two things which is fashion design and film. I’m trying to find a way to mold those two into a career. I’m sure there’s something out there,” Belo said.
While Konopka, Marchant, and Belo were all in the United States, artist Zoe Kovacs ‘14 and photographer Melanie Kovacs ‘15 traveled through Paris, France with the Oxbridge Program.
“I’ve never done film before, so I learned how to use the manual controls on the camera, which is really the best way to go because you’re really getting your own shot because it’s not the computer getting the shot for you. It is honestly one of the most rewarding things because you look at it, and you say, ‘That was me, I did all of this,’ Melanie Kovacs commented about her program.
She returned from her trip with a new love for black and white film: “I felt that I was passionate about photography before but even more so now. There’s just something about the effect of film. You can’t get it anywhere else or even in Photoshop,” said Melanie Kovacs.
As her sister was taking snap-shots of the City of Lights, Zoe Kovacs was taking a studio art
class. “It was a one month program so for the first two and half weeks all we did was walk around and sketch. It got really old after a while, but if you look through the sketchbook from the beginning to the end you can see so much improvement. We had to learn how to let our hands relax,” recalled Zoe Kovacs. “On the first day, we went to the Eiffel tower where we sat in front of it and drew the tower, and the scenery around it. The place we went to school was right across the Luxembourg Gardens, so sometimes we would go in there,” she added.
Back at the Episcopal Academy for the school year, both sisters are implementing the skills they learned into their art classes. “The main thing that I really got out of it was that I learned how to use so many different materials,” Zoe Kovacs stated. “I didn’t really realize how important practice was before I went, but just from the short time I was there and seeing how much better I got just sketching down everything, you can see that it got so much easier.”
Melanie Kovacs added, “I’m working in film with [Charles Collins, Upper School photography teacher], who is a great teacher and is really helping me. He’s taking the skills that I learned in Paris and is really teaching me to hone in on them and to understand the effects I really want.”