AP Drawing Anna Sorokina Keynote

Last museum/gallery visit

          I was amazed at the variety of work being presented at both Faculty/Staff and Studio Art exhibitions. From photography to scrapbooking to beautiful watercolor pieces to skillful pottery, the variety of art was impressive. 
          It was also new to me that scrapbooking can be art too. I've always thought that it was something people did for fun when they were bored. However, I saw some beautiful sketchbooks filled with doodles, patterns, and simple writing that made impressive pieces of artwork when put together. 
          It was especially shocking to see the quality of teacher's work who aren't even affiliated with the art department. I realized that teachers aren't necessarily just good at what they teach; they can also be good at things we don't expect them to know how to do, like art. 
Same goes for Studio Art kids-I had no idea some of them were artists. Seeing them in math/science classes and seeing their artworks was eye-opening. I honestly did not expect school’s smartest math and science geeks to be THAT good at art. 
          I also came to realize that art unites people. I’ve been to numerous exhibitions, where I saw artwork of professional artists. Many of those exhibitions were world famous; it was obvious that lots of time and money has been put into them. Don’t get me wrong-I’m a huge fan of world famous art museums and I truly respect the amount of work featured artists put into their art. However, I don’t visit small-scale exhibitions that often and honestly, I’ve never thought I needed to. I’ve always considered such places as Louvre and MOMA the best collections of art there are in the world. So, of course, I’ve never been to an exhibition of my teachers’ art. 
           Artwork presented at the Faculty/Staff exhibition turned out to be better than a lot of the stuff I’ve seen at MOMA, that’s for sure. However, even though the quality and the variety of techniques matter, they were not the main thing that amazed me. What I saw was a great range of talents that we have here at SAS. It turned out that faculty and staff who I pass in the hallways every day are all incredibly talented people. They aren’t just math or history teachers, they are also artists, musicians, actors. 
And students aren’t just students. They are so much more than that. I know that some of them struggled with art during first semester. A couple of them even used to ask me how I survived in AP Drawing. Now, I can tell that they are much more confident with their art, their skills, their talent. And art isn’t just math or history- memorizing dates and formulas doesn’t do the trick. Kids who used to struggle in art developed skills and habits that took more time and effort than any test-prep session. I was so proud of them because last year, I was a Studio Art student, too, and I know exactly what it feels like to be unconfident about your own art. 
           I realized that art really does unite people. Not all of us are good at science or languages, but art is something everyone is capable of creating. Whether it is a sketchbook piece or a ceramic pot, every art piece is unique and beautiful, and so are people at SAS, with their hidden talents and secret aspirations. 

Cultural Convention

2nd quarter museum visit

1. I really liked the exhibition because I thought it was different from the ones I’ve been to before. The variety and quality of work amazed me even though those were not famous artists. That made me think that some of the world famous artists are not famous because  of the quality of their work, but because of all the promotion they got. That made me a little sad because I knew that all those artists deserved the same recognition as Picasso and Van Gogh get. 
2. There was work from all over the world there and I could see how different it was depending on where the artists were from. There was some modern art; unique pieces created with smoke; Chanel perfume created by French artists; day in life in some of the poorer countries. 
3. Pricing of most pieces surprised me because there was $10000 and $1000 artwork hanging side by side. Although I understand that the amount of work and time put into it as well as money spent on art supplies determined the price of art pieces, I thought that some of the $1000 deserved to be sold for more than that and vise versa. That made me wonder how artists put price tags on their work, what the main factor is in that decision, and if they compare those prices to other artists’ prices later. 
   

AP Art Museum Visit

What I liked about the museum was how different the paintings were. Some of them portrayed old Balinese life with developed agriculture and almost no tourism. The other ones were all about their modern way of life. Those were mostly paintings of Indonesians with phones and computers, involved in such activities as surfing and shopping. The clothes were very different too: the contrast between the traditional modest clothes and modern Europeanized ones is obvious. Three things I learned were the way Indonesians saw their lives before and after the industrialization, which one they respected more, and how they went about showing that.