Annie Le ’27
With a new academic year comes a new burst of creativity in the EA community, reflected in our visual arts program. From creating three-dimensional designs to digital canvases, EA is filled with talented student artists eager to share their skill. The 2023-2024 year holds plenty of opportunities and events for art to flourish.
While there are many opportunities throughout the year for students to showcase their work, the “Art Show” in January is an especially accessible opportunity. For the show, students from every grade level—as well as members of the faculty and staff—are invited to create an art piece using any medium, with the only requirement being that this piece must fit on an 8×8-inch square. Ms. Tucci, Middle School Art Teacher, remarks, “…when you take the work of like 12 years worth of age range, and you put it all together, it’s kind of interesting to see the way like a third grader’s work plays off of Mr. Sigel’s work, or a second grader plays off of a photograph that a junior took.”
Additionally, as with previous years, Artsfest takes place in April. The arts faculty will start putting up artwork from around “mid-to late March,” according to Ms. Tucci, although if one enters the Campus Center, one can already find mounted artwork in the halls. Furthermore, Install-It, a club run by Eleanor Anderson ’25 and supervised by ceramics and sculpture teacher Mrs. Hutchison, is making a large mural for the Modern Languages Department that will go in the Upper School.
Outside of EA, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are taking place. According to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards website, the Regional Awards take place in January and the National Awards take place in March, and entries open in September. Mrs. Hutchison expresses hope that students will participate. Student artist Karen Shi ’27 explained her work for the competition, describing,“I have been preparing for the competition for a couple of months and have around five pieces lined up to submit!”
Some students have individual projects planned, like Karen. One of her pieces for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is about artificial intelligence and human impact on nature. Though Katherine Luo ’27 is kept busy by academics and extracurriculars, she plans to “incorporate art in [her] academics.” Others plan to participate in some of the events that EA is offering. Eleanor expresses interest in Epolitan, EA’s art magazine, and seeks to work on landscapes using watercolor, her favorite medium. She also notes that her classmates are very “individualistic and their projects [often] highlight social justice [issues].”
Photo courtesy of Carter Yearley ’27
Additionally, student photographer Tavis Sanders ‘26 has been working hard this year on different projects. “This year I’ve just been working on my craft. I’ve been bringing my camera everywhere, trying to find my style and embrace my creativity.” He has spent much of the first semester taking photos around EA: in the classroom, on the fields, in the art rooms, and anywhere else he has felt inspired. “I am particularly proud of my photo of Chris [Purnell ‘24] from the Penn Charter game.” Tavis plans to continue taking photos and finding new inspiration as the year goes on.
The visual arts program at EA is intertwined with the rest of the EA community. Ms. Hutchison remarks, “[Visual arts] inspires people to think creatively…it’s giving them a different way to think intellectually about work.” To Ms. Tucci, the EA visual Arts program “[touches] a whole lot more than what most people give it credit for…some of our best artists are people who do not [primarily] identify as artists. Art weaves its way into all these different [places with] all these tendrils; it kind of creeps in without you even realizing that it’s there, which I find exciting, and I hope one day that people will see it more clearly.”