Friday, April 3, 2015

I Figured that I Needed a TItle

A heartbreaking tale from the infamous Belmont High AP art student- Chunlok Lo

Really though, I am actually just some nobody in the school; I'm another one of those nameless kid that no one knows about.

But whatever. You guys asked, I deliver. Here is my story.

Art, music, creativity, was always part of who I am. When my parents took me to art courses when I was a weenie little kid in kindergarten, I was intrigued by the various interesting clay dinosaurs, finger paintings, and the mess of hot glue and wires some might call a "sculpture".

I loved it then because it was awesome. You can make literally whatever comes to your head!

Life is not so simple one can simply speak in words.
Feelings cannot simply be conveyed in the finite number of combination of letters or words.

Each words as a precise meaning that is set by the people using it.

So as long as people conveyed to each other in languages, I don't ever think people can truly share their emotions without over-reducing them.

One cannot truly share emotions unless one actually experience it for themselves.

People will never truly understand the inspiring brilliance of the sun one winter snowy day, nor truly understand the beauty of the cherry blossom on that one April day.

In that way, I always hated expressing myself in words. In words, it will take infinite amounts of words, adjectives on top of adjectives, adverbs on top of adverbs, to truly describe each moment in life in its full capacity.

And in the end, it always fails to capture the essence of the moment, the feeling generated when all the factors combine into one single experience.

That's where art comes in.

A picture doesn't worth a thousand words,
A picture worth far more than a thousand words can ever convey.

We don't have to tell what the listener what its like to be in that place at that time.
We can just show them.

Each pieces of artwork is unique to its viewer. The track of their eyes, the vibrancy of the colors, the emotions that swells, the thoughts that forms. A piece of art does not only convey one side of the debate, but millions and billions different side to a situation, differing in each viewer.

In a sense, art is about gathering all those thousands of viewpoints and guiding them to focus on the things you saw.

Art is about transcending all those layers of human interaction and drill your feelings, your emotions, and your thoughts right into the other person's heart.

In a sense, one doesn't need to be anyone to enjoy art. One needs no vocabulary nor understanding truly grasp the situation occurring. Each piece of art should speak for itself.

A piece of art is at its greatest when it can truly affect its viewers.

And that's what is beautiful about it.

To get together with other artists in the school, to stand with those that is committed to the creation of art is indeed an honor.

The class that I am most enjoyed throughout the whole school day, the class where you can act to your inspiration away from the strict curriculum of other classes, the class that doesn't ask the students not be taught but instead learn and strive through self discipline and motivation.

This class, this place, this environment, have ingrained in me experiences, inspirations, and understandings beyond the limit of the standard curriculum.

Art is so much more than just brushstrokes on a canvas.

It is something that resonates with the hearts of people.








Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Kabita Das (Current AP Art student)

I have spent seven months in the Advanced Placement art class, and even after such a short amount of time, it has had a monumental impact on my art and my character.

In the preceding classes, Drawing and Painting 1&2, the students are intended to learn the basic technical skills to realistic art. When beginning AP Art, the next level, everyone is held to a high technical standard and are encouraged to push their boundaries in many ways. The assignments are given to us in short amounts of time, pushing us to work faster and think quicker. Because of this, I finally learned to trust my technical skills and to start painting with my emotions. Consequently my art has become increasingly personal and therapeutic because it has become a healthy emotional release of my accumulated stress.

Additionally, the relaxed environment that the class has instilled contributes greatly to the art that is produced. Because of our common interest and passion for art, I have grown extremely close to many of my peers and trust that they will not judge the ideas behind my art pieces, knowing that they can become very personal. This trust liberated my artistic exploration and allowed me to incorporate complex emotions that I may feel, but do not know how to otherwise express.

Because art is so personal, one might question the importance of the school setting, and suggest the possibility that us young aspiring artists take our art home and keep it there. In response: no I cannot. Art comes from inspiration; seeing and talking to different kinds of people. This I am able to do in the art room. I have had the opportunity to meet so many different people with whom I never would have thought to speak with, and have had amazing, memorable experiences. We encourage each other, we compete with each other and we push each other to higher standards. This is most certainly not an experience I can have in the corner of my bedroom.

Furthermore, the environment the art class has created gave me an opportunity to come out of my shell. The majority of my life, I've considered myself quiet and shy, and limited myself to certain boundaries because of these characteristics. I found it difficult to open up to other people in fear of being disregarded and thus I remained quiet. This affected my behavior in all my classes as I avoided participation and dreaded all oral presentations. However the environment in AP Art is much different than in any other classroom. I immediately felt accepted among the other students and gradually began talking more and more. I was inspired with confidence, and this carried through to every aspect of my life.

Art is important to me; it has helped me overcome countless personal barriers and encouraged me to push my boundaries. Losing a class like AP Art would be detrimental to me; I'm not sure how I could replace these experiences. However I have had them already, and what concerns me is passing these moments along to the next generation of AP Art students. What concerns me is the next young girl who struggles to make her voice heard in this world, and who can finally have a place project it. What concerns me is building upon a place of inspiration; not destroying it.





Friday, March 13, 2015

A story from a past student

Story from Justin Jang who was in Ap art class.

I'm currently going to USC as an art major student, and I was part of AP Art class of BHS on my junior and senior year of high school. First of all, I would say AP Art class was one of the most precious memory of my high school life with two perspective: the subject itself and the class atmosphere. Talking about subject matter, AP Art was something irreplaceable in my study career of high school year, where I got to be expressive with my ideas, get tons of visual inspirations, and free myself from taking notes and figuring out what is xyz. On the other hand, AP Art class was different from other classes, as Milo, our forever AP Art teacher of BHS, stressed enough about how AP Art classmates should be a team instead of individual students who just take the class and goes. As a team, there were lots of conversation going on in the class, such as what they have ate yesterday, to a somewhat more constructive criticisms or thoughts about their art works. And the class was powerful enough to draw myself into the art world, and jump in to the college to study art a step further with great memories, inspirations, and skills that I learned from AP Art. I recently heard that there was a budget cut in belmont that they are cutting lots of classes. It is really unfortunate that it happened, but I really hope the class survives. It would be disaster if BHS don't have AP Art class.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Shreya Patel

It was eighth grade when I first became interested in art. My middle school art teacher saw some of my classwork and encouraged me to take part in an out of class art competition against other students in the state. I consider the piece I did then my first “real” piece of art – not that it was any good. But I call it that because it was the first time I cared about what I was making. The day Ms. Byrnes told me she was impressed with my work and wanted to see more was the day I became emotionally invested in art.

The first room I set foot in on my first day of high school was the art room. I walked in for homeroom, expecting a normal classroom, and was surprised when I saw a room covered with paintings. It was mesmerizing; never before had I been exposed to so much art. It was everywhere – from paintings of Tupac on the ceiling to giant self-portraits resting against the wall. While the quantity itself was impressive, the quality was mind blowing. From that moment on I was hooked.

I wanted to be in AP Art and now 2 years, 2 art courses, and a frightening application process later I am. And it’s nothing like I expected it to be.

My freshmen year, when I saw the art in Milo’s room, I sort of formed a conclusion, that by the time you’re in AP all the work you produce takes little effort and still turns out beautiful. Obviously I was wrong. What I didn’t realize until this year was that to reach that high caliber of art, I had to work harder than I ever had before; I had to be open to criticism, and I had to clear my mind and rethink what I knew, and allow myself to grow.

Because, despite what I thought, there is no end goal when it comes to art. There’s only room to improve.

AP Art fosters the environment young artists need to break boundaries and grow, while simultaneously improving technically. I personally attribute this to not only Milo’s incredible instruction, but also the community. In the art room we challenge, push, and most importantly support each other.

The first 2 months (especially the first 3 weeks) of AP Art were hell, to put it simply. I don’t really remember sleeping much, or doing much of anything besides art. We had new projects every 3 days (to put this into context before the class we’d take about a month or 2 to finish each piece). It was hard, it was very very hard, but I would do it again in heartbeat.

During those first couple of months of the class my quality of work increased significantly, and I found myself in a new community. As we completed and critiqued each piece I found myself growing extremely close to people I had previously barely spoken to. At first it was mainly about art, the amount of work we had, and ways we could improve; but as time passed we became more than peers, we became friends.

I’ve found that because of this class I have a place of support. Whether that’s for artist’s block, school, or my personal life. I can count on my fellow artists, my friends, to be there for me.

So far AP Art has been an incredible experience for me, and I’m excited to see what else is in store. But it won’t happen if the class is cut. AP Art has not only inspired me, and this is not the only tight knit community that’s formed due to it.  For 15 years AP Art has been a place for all types of people to come together and do what they do best – create art. It would be a shame if it were taken away.








Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Future students who want to take AP Art

Over the past 15 years a few hundred students have taken this incredible class. It has affected all of their lives as well as the 27 students who are enrolled in the current school year.

This is a list of the Art 1 and Art 2 students who one day wish to apply to AP art.


Nida Kadayifci
Nayun Eorn
Qianyin Idu
Ashley Liu
Olga Katayenku
Callie Bear
Brace Westgate
Lilikoi Bronson
Seneca Hart
Alix Bebem
Eva Hill
Autumn Galindo
Tamara Ahakhverdova
Richard Ma
Nick Kom
Calvin Perkins
Carey Allard
Miriam Cubstead
Jia Zhang
Shodai Sullivan
Mirilla Zhu
Luara Patterson
Christine Macleod
Anthony Bular
Lund Bradley
Jennifer Tan
Eliza Jones
Anna Dibble
Nate Green
Bryan Huang
Thor Elfarsson
Rachel Laing

32 more students. 32 more students who will be denied the opportunity to be a part of this incredible class. 32 more legacies just waiting to happen. And 32 more students who will never have the opportunity if AP art is cut.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Normal

Kate Saylor

Art class with Milo is so much more than just a "normal regular" high school art class. It's the class I look forward to the most. It's the class that's not a class because AP art is something magical.Through our art we can tell stories, we can express emotion and we can send messages. Art helps us make sense of our crazy world, and broadens our experience and understanding. The arts enable us to imagine the unimaginable, and to connect us to the past, the present, and the future, sometimes simultaneously.

The art room is the place when we can laugh, smile, cry, scream, curl into fetal position, run around like headless chickens, but its also the place where we produce the most amazing pieces of artwork. It's the place where we can be ourself without anyone impeding us. The art room environment is an extremely unique and special. The freedom we have allows us to test limits and take chances allowing us to create incredible art pieces. 

To me art class is the best class of the day. It's the rest from the crazy school day, a break from the tests and the chaos where numbers and grades matter. Milo promotes trying the crazy and impossible things in our art. He pushes us to take risks without worrying about what letter or number will define us. Milo teaches us that it doesn't matter what grade we get, none of that matters as long as you try something new and don't always play it safe.

The Belmont High AP art class have received The Advanced Placement in Studio Art highest state and national honors in the Scholastic Art competition, winning more gold awards in the area of painting than any other art program in the state for the last 12 years.

We have won the American Vision Award (best in state) 10 times in the last 15 years that’s more than any other program in the area of painting in the state ever.

In 2009 a student was honored with a Senatorial citation for excellence in art presented by the Massachusetts Senators.

Our students have received the highest scholarships totaling approximately 60 million dollars from the most prestigious schools both art schools and universities over the last 18 years.Previous students have gone off to work at some of the most prestigious companies; Pixar, Google, Microsoft, ABC Studio’s, Calvin Klein, Levi’s, Under Armor, 20th Century Studio’s, and New York and Company.

This class is also the only possible way for any of us to be accepted into an Art School or an Art Program. Out of the 16 seniors in the class of 2015, 10 of us are pursuing art as a major. and 16 out of 16 are pursuing art in some capacity. Without this art class it will be nearly impossible to attend art school and definitely will be impossible to get scholarship money. We've received 60 million dollars in scholarship money. All of that will be gone if this class is cut. 

Our class is not normal. I don't want normal, and honestly, I'm dreading the time at the end of the year in a few short months when we all must return to normalcy. This class is the first and last class I'm ever going participate in thats ever like this. It is truly an incredible and legendary class and it would be devastating for this class to be cut and deny students from experiencing the magic. 



Architecture Assignment AP1: "Bridges"

50-something Assignment AP1: "Insomniac"
Linear Motion assignment AP2: "Silks"





Luke Perrotta

Whenever I'm labeled as an artist, I feel sort of guilty, like I cheated to earn the name. It's a stupid thing to think, and it's also why so many people dismiss the word art whenever they hear it—isn't art that impractical, hard, labor-intensive thing that's only made by people who learned to hold a pencil before they could crawl? Isn't it that thing that's made to do nothing more than look pretty and take up space? 

No. 

To believe any of that isn't just wrong—it's seriously behind the times. I was never as talented as the other students who were in AP Art, but that doesn't matter. That's not because "the art room is a respectful workspace" or because "we appreciate everyone's work"—in fact, the bar is and always has been very high—it's because modern art is nothing like many people's conception of it. Art is in everything: all forms of media, advertising and the corporate world, technology, whatever you can think of. 

This is an exceedingly vague and easy claim to make, but I really believe it because AP Art taught me more powerfully than anything else ever could. Visual art serves as the medium through which I can tell stories, whereas for other students in my class it's a vessel for architectural and technological design (or even philosophy). 

For me, it took an AP Art class environment to realize this. It took a class with a completely free environment and brutally high standards made me realize that art can really be a whole lot of things, as long as you're bold and hardworking enough to realize your ideas. 

I've been in AP Art for one year, and that year gave me the opportunity to do what I want to do—tell stories and get my ideas out with the aid of visual art. Art shaped my future, and I'm nowhere close to the only one, which is why the continuation of AP Art is so important to me. Even if I won't be here to directly feel the consequences, I would hate to see this same opportunity die for those younger (but often more talented) than I am. 

So the next time you hear about art, take a moment to think about what it might mean. It's probably not what you think.