Students Exploring Creativity and Self-Expression in Talented AP Visual Arts Portfolios

Students choose a concentration and create up to 12 pieces of art in a “sustained investigation” of their choosing.
St. Margaret’s senior Gaby Cinquini’s 3D sculpture went from a carefully carved work of ice and wax to an unrecognizable melted form in just a short time.

Just as she was hoping.

Gaby’s AP 3D design portfolio concentration is focused on time-based art, a form of art noted for its durational dimension. In her first piece, Gaby used casting to create a sculpture featuring polar bears made out of wax, perched on blocks of ice representing their habitat.

Each polar bear had a wick on its back, and during a school day in the Johnson Wallis Visual Arts Center, Gaby lit the candles. The polar bears and the ice blocks slowly melted as students looked on.

“I wanted this piece to be unique in its technique,” Gaby said. “It demonstrates change over a time with the inspiration from a global issue I’m passionate about.”

Students in St. Margaret’s AP 3D design, AP 2D design and AP drawing classes spent most of the first semester of the school year fulfilling the “breadth” portion of their portfolio, which highlights many different artistic approaches to demonstrate versatility over eight pieces of art.

For the second half of the year, students choose a “concentration” and create up to 12 pieces in what Visual Arts Chair Jesse Standlea calls a “sustained investigation” in a realm of their choosing.

“The art becomes more individualized,” Mr. Standlea said. “We have conversations with them about their concentration, and then the students own it. It’s neat to see where they take it.”

Besides Gaby’s time-based concentration, some of the unique examples include:
  • Senior Lauren McCaffrey mixing 3D art and fashion to make wearable art. Some of her early submissions includes a dress made out of coffee filters.
  • Senior Evette Chung using acrylic paint, graphite, drawing pens and other media to connect visual arts with music. She is using techniques that combine abstraction and pure form with realistic renderings of portraits and instruments for her 2D design portfolio.
  • Junior Tiana Baird making abstract art with a kinetic component, using mobiles in some of her early submissions.
  • Senior Blake Stevenson using graphite and digital drawings to create a “hero’s journey” story arc that combines elements of narrative traditions reconfigured into a series of interrelated images.
At the end of the school year, the AP students will write detailed descriptions of each art piece to submit along with their portfolio of work.
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