Words And Images

In this issue, our theme centers around a variety of mediums that encompass both writing and art from five town area teens. It's interesting to see that with many of these pieces, there is a message within an artistic message.

With our new blog format, we are able to use multimedia, so kicking off this issue is a video clip from CHRHS's Fine Arts Night in which students Louisa Klemperer and Aidan Kaczynski sing a duet from Spring Awakening play "Don't Do Sadness"/"Blue Wind." Check out what they have to say about it below:

Louisa:  Aidan and I had been in Phantom of The Opera together and we said, why don't we do something together for Fine Arts Day. I came up with the song from the play Spring Awakening, which he hadn't heard before. We practiced maybe four times, but we were pretty comfortable up on stage.

Aidan: When Louisa asked me if I could do a musical theater piece with her, I jumped at the opportunity, since she and I played opposite each other in Phantom of the Opera, so it would be almost sentimental in a way. I didn't know the song very well to start off with. I'd heard of the musical before, but had never really listened to any of it. I sat down and listened to the song and figured "All right, well I'm good with rock vocals, so this should be cake!" feeling no real attachment at the time. After doing a few very brief rehearsals with Louisa during lunch or break periods, I began to listen more to the lyrics as I sang them. "Don't do sadness"... It reminded me very much of how I had been distancing myself from people recently because I was getting so mopey and depressed all the time. I was trying to escape from everything by just shutting off my feelings. I literally didn't do sadness! And so, when I had my emotional connection to the song, I knew exactly what to do with it. I had handled things that would depress most with cynicism for a while, and so that's how I treated the sheer thought of sadness--it became a joke. I don't need it. I've been there so many times already, why not just skip it? Sadness leaves the equation when you stop caring so much about it, and so... I did.


Editor Comment: I chose to add this video clip in this issue because it was a powerful way to see what was behind the words and images of this particular song. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture the entire thing on video. To see the song in its entirety you can go here, filmed by someone else. It's quite blurry, so just listen to it.  I think you'll find that Louisa and Aidan perform it beautifully.

Claire Horne: This piece was about seeing shapes, in this case letters, in the world around you; I chose the phrase "C'est L'amour" because that's what I see art as: "It's Love."

Cody Barnett: This was for a poster contest online--but I also wanted to incorporate a few of my favorite ski companies. “Educational Style” is the title, but I also added my own favorite ski companies such as: Jiberish, Nilton, Ninthward Ski, and Tecnica. I'm hoping I’ll catch their attention because a lot of Facebook people post their artwork on [the ski companies'] Facebook pages and get quite a bit of attention that way. 

Aidan Kaczynski:  The initial assignment was to simply find letters in everyday objects, snap the pictures, and make an alphabet out of them --or-- make a word of at least 10 letters with said pictures. I saw some crosswords on the table in front of me, and I instantly had an idea. I would take words that music and people have in common and connect them via shared letters. This was to make a visual metaphor of how they all depend upon one another to exist, in music just as well as society. I wanted to show the lesson that music has to offer us. There are six words in the piece: Balance, Harmony, Strength, Integrity, Resolution, and Unity. Their message is in the way they are strung together. We are all notes in one giant composition, and when there is discord, we all need to work together (BALANCE, UNITY, HARMONY) to get back in tune (RESOLUTION) and make our music as powerful as it can be (STRENGTH), and when we do, our song will be unwavering (INTEGRITY).

 

Lyssa Ward: When I wrote this, I had my heart broken. It hurt more then I ever imagened. It was like someone took a knife, cut out my heart, stabbed it many times, and put it back inside me, so I could feel the pain. Anywho, when I was younger, I'd thought when I grew up, I would fall in love with someone, just like all the fairytales I read when I was a kid. Thats what I imagened love was. Once I got older, I realized that falling in love isn't really a fairytale. What I wrote, I wanted to express what I thought love was really supposed to be. Some people see it differently, but this is how I see love. 

Adult Comment: Its a good poem. Comes across as someone who's wise, and who's had her heart broken. I feel that's what really makes someone understand what love really is, which is having your heart broken.
-Jay Edwards, Stepfather

Cody Barnett: This is a pencil drawing. The word on his face mask is Russian for the word: “Write.” I was just kind of watching the news around the Russian revolts and just doodling and I’m also of Russian background so, I thought it would be kind of cool to incorporate that word “write.”  

Editor Comment: I thought that this was a striking pen and ink drawing, not just for the visual image of what looks like a Russian protestor, but also because Cody seemed to make the Russian word "write" into a symbol of freedom, which is something he stands for, having researched recent Russian conflicts.  

 

Lizzy Cox: This was a cardboard creation for Waterfall Arts' display "Corregation Nation." I thought of the idea of the book when I saw the lines inside the cardboard, I thought of “pages,” so that is what inspired me to use that line to make a book and so I had the words coming out of it: “Once upon at time.”