Senior Wendy Zhang
What are you doing right now Wendy?
I am making a canvas, I am putting this gesso on top of the canvas which makes tighter and workable. It makes the surface smooth so we can paint on it.
You can’t just paint on the cloth itself?
Well you could, buy it in stores like if you buy a canvas this is what they have on it. It just makes it easier to paint on.
So you have to paint your own?
I just did because I like making them and also just because they’re pretty expensive, but here I just took the wood frame and stapled this canvas cloth on too it, so it’s just cheaper in the end and not that hard.
This looks like pretty strenuous work
It’s not that bad
What do you plan on painting?
I’m gonna work on a piece for the next art show. The theme is, “Passages and Pathways.” So you can explore it literally, just like spaces or bridges or stuff like that, like different areas. Or you could explore it conceptually like finding your own way in life or something like that and I’m not quite sure what I want to do. I think I’m gonna work on something both conceptually and visually and something with a bunch of facets, I don’t know I haven’t figured it all out.
So you’re a senior this year Wendy?
Yes
Do you plan on painting in college?
Yes, I definitely plan on doing art in college, whether that’s through double major or just taking art classes or doing art as an extracurricular because I think it’s important. Art is a big part of my life right now and I can’t imagine just ending it so yeah I’ll definitely work on art. It just helps me with life and, oh shoot! I just spilled this on my pants. I’ll be right back this stuff doesn’t wash out.
*Wendy came back*
So you said art has a pretty big role in your life now? What is that?
It helps me with other parts of my life. Planning pieces and figuring out compositions helps me with logical and critical thinking and also just staying on track with my pieces and staying consistent and working on them helps me be more organized in other aspects of my life.
Actually, for the past few months I’ve been pretty stressed about college apps and coming to this class has really helped with that and it’s almost therapeutic. You still have to use your brain and think about everything you’re doing. It’s not just mindless work, but it’s just a different mental environment I’m in.
Does it make you happy?
Yeah, definitely. I think I’m happiest when I come up with ideas for pieces. I get really excited about working on them.
Do you have any other ideas you excited to work on?
Well, right now I’m in AP Art 2 and I’ve had trouble sticking to one concentration.
What’s concentration?
Well, we need 12 pieces that are related in some way whether it’s by medium or style or concept They need to be a true body of work rather than just random pieces.
And you’ve had a hard time just focusing on one?
I think I kept getting bored of working on the same subject or using the same medium so I think this semester I’m gonna try to stick with one thing. However, I’m not planning on submitting to the AP college board which is how we get college credit for this AP class so I think I’ll be able to have some time to experiment with new stuff.
Wait, I never thought about that, so how do you get AP credit for an art class?
Well last year I was in AP Art 1 and that’s where we focus on our breadth as an artist, like our range, and we have to show we can work in different styles and mediums. This year we’re working on the concentration which is the 12 related pieces and in order to get college credit we have to submit all 24 of those pieces to the college board and they give us a score out of five.
That’s crazy, that’s like actually like a real person judging your art, that sounds terrifying for a high schooler!
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of art being judged, but that’s the only way to make sense of how good a piece is I guess.
Why are you not a fan?
I really feel pieces are subjective and usually artists have some sort of concept behind their work, but if they just wanna create stuff that looks pretty that’s fine and the viewers can decide how they want to interpret it. I feel like it shouldn’t be held to any certain one standard that’s meant to be universal.
I mean if you think about it, in art class we get grades so I mean in a way we’re still judged. But I have to say, here, Stevie and Trescott, our teachers, really consider our perspective when they grade our work and I never feel like I’m being judged.
But in the real world it’s different. I recently visited a college and had a portfolio reviewed there, and the lady was pretty critical of my work. I think it’s a good experience to get a feel for how professional art is judged looked at because for professional artists they have to deal with market prices and art critics and people who judge their work. So in a way I don’t agree with art being judged, but it’s just apart of how things are in a business setting. As much as it is for expression, art is just as much a business.
I’ve never really thought of that business aspect of it before. What are the boxes they have to cekc then, like what were they looking for when your art was critiqued?
Well, so I think in high school art a lot of it is trying to make things look realistic and working on technical skills. When I went in to my review, she told me that I had strong technical skills and she told me to just expand and push my ideas further conceptually. I think that’s the hardest part about art. Coming up with a concept and finding a way to portray that through a piece because  you don’t just want to see images of realistic faces. I think that even though the general public really appreciates realistic art, in the professional art community they really value abstract and stylised works.
That sounds so hard, like you can’t improve your imagination or creative thoughts the way you improve technique where then it’s just matter of physical work and practice. But with conception it’s harder, practice might not make perfect.
Yeah, it really opened my eyes to how hard art is. Basically what she told me to do was push my conception even further almost to the point of being obscure, I think? I don’t know it’s hard to explain and I don’t fully understand what she wanted.
But I’ve been trying to sketch more and think through projects more before I start them and that helps me really think about art. They also really like when we draw from observation and in this class a lot of the time what happens is we draw from a photo and we grid it and basically copy it onto our canvas. That’s what critics don’t want. They want us to draw what we see because it helps us develop things like spacial skills.
That sounds really hard.
It is and a lot of the times people think art is easy, but it’s really more than that. Even people who can draw and just copy a photo, I don’t think that’s really art.
What do you think makes real art?
I think pretty much anything can be art and I like to keep an open definition of it. At the same time I don’t think just copying things is art. It has to be like an original idea that involves an actual thought.
But I mean there are different types of art that convey different things. Like conceptual art is when you look at the piece and it may look weird, but it’s the idea behind it that’s important.
I’m still figuring the definition. Wait, I mean it’s not that I think there’s one definition of art, I just think I’m still trying to figure out my definition of art. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m trying to figure out the definition of art because I just think it’s different for everyone. I’m just still…exploring.
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