By Sarah Rovinsky

Bellbrook High School hosted its annual art show on Saturday, March 4. Live music, art, and food were all enjoyed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  All students, freshmen to seniors, are represented in the art show. However, only seniors have the opportunity to display all of their accumulated work in a window exhibit.

Mrs. Hensley explained that we have an art show to feature our students’ talents and abilities. “Sports have their tournaments and banquets, band has their concerts, and some students are involved in all of that but some students that aren’t involved in anything but art need to have their time (to be celebrated) as well… They need to be shown off.”

Dana Raber, a featured senior in the art show, has always considered herself to be an artist. Her favorite piece she displayed was called Funky Figures. “At first, I had this idea that the first (figure) would be doing shadow puppets, and then the more I worked on it I thought, well, this needs some song lyrics and stuff and I kept drawing my favorite places inside the hand figures like a double exposure thing. Then I thought, well, my favorite songs are from How to Train Your Dragon, so I wrote down a lot of the lyrics from those songs. It made me really happy doing a piece that embodied a lot of the things that I liked. Towards the beginning of the project but deep enough in for me to not be able to start over, someone dropped black paint on it in the corner and I was kinda livid but I ended up painting some beautiful flowers over it so that was a nice example of a happy mistake.” Raber plans to continue to pursue art professionally and recreationally. “I’m going to get a degree in visual communication design but what I really want to do is work as a vendor at craft fairs and pursue it professionally wherever I can. I enjoy having a goal to work for so the profit makes it even more fun but I love both. I love doing art for the sake of it but I also want to be able to support myself on it.”

John Gallagher, another talented senior, has considered himself an artist since the first grade. His favorite pieces displayed were his sharpie portraits. “I think it’s a really cool way to portray people and I love using arbitrary colors in my work because it’s not realistic or typical. Anything that makes life more interesting is good. Sometimes, I coordinate the colors with the expression or the personality of the person I’m depicting or even contrast the colors with that.” Gallagher is still debating whether or not to continue art professionally but will continue in his free time. When asked what he will miss most about Bellbrook Art Shows, he replied, “The artists themselves because I love love the senior art exhibits. You get to see what someone considers their own best work and a lot of times it’s not work that they did for a project or what they were required to do but what they did on their own and that really shows a lot about a person. We always have so much talent here so it’s always amazing to see what people have done.”

In the end, Mrs. Hensley hopes that students walk away knowing that, “Their work is valued. The community, the parents, the teachers, they are admired and valued for their artistic abilities and visions. It’s so exciting to show off your stuff to other people and then you get feedback like, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t know you could do that. That’s really beautiful.’ I hope the kids hear people talking about them like that.”