What a team! Art teachers and their students! This is only a few of them. The art students at Lord Byng high school have continued to pour out astonishing work. They have been participating in Artists in our Midst West Side Art walk since 2008. This has been their art teacher’s team agenda with Jon Hartley-Folz; to cultivate creativity, encourage their students to explore, challenge themselves and inspire these enthusiastic students to imagine themselves larger. Participating with AIOM allows them to experience themselves and their work in a professional public venue. They are a most welcome and vital part of this event. It is most encouraging for at AIOM to see these fantastic, articulate budding artists join this event with their astonishing work. Some have taken art classes with Jon for 2-3 years so they have built quite an easy open rapport with him. Simply put, he’s a great teacher. He builds community, respectful communication and creativity amongst his students and inspires team work devoid of competition. I’m sure this is true of all the Lord Byng art teachers. It is a perfect environment for creative growth.

The assignment, assigned by art teacher Lori York was to explore texture, composition, empty and full space and detail in black and white.

Violet’s piece, created in Jon’s class, was all accident and happenstance and she created a celebration of that. Her idea was to photo copy her face … but she tripped and fell onto the copier and this image happened. She totally went with it. Violet used bamboo charcoal for its softness on a grey paper, again to soften the image. The hair she said, was a challenge but it looks to me like it was really fun to do. The squished nose was also a challenge but clearly she pulled it off. So she finishes her drawing and someone some how splattered something on it (still a mystery). Her reaction speaks volumes of the kind of art class she is in. She embraced this happy accident and feels it finished the piece.

Jessica chose to explore and examine leaves. With a mix of fine detail and washes. She started with a small sketch and placed a grid over it to enlarge the image. The soft peaceful background brings a refreshed eye back to the detail in the leaves. There is rhythm and rhyme here in the careful placement of each leaf.

Jennifer’s Octopus almost swims off of the paper. It’s full and swirly and powerful. She thought about drawing a small detail of the octopus but decided to draw as much of it as she could. That she left some of it outside the frame allows me to imagine the rest. She has drawn this octopus with a lot of dynamics giving it a three-dimensional quality, the heavily detailed cross hatched contrasting flat background accentuates this. As I was looking deeply into to this magnificent octopus, I noticed a tiny detail that seems out of place, I asked her about it and yes, she had put a little surprise in it to have something there someone to see. This gave her much delight …. me too.

Natasha had drawn a leaf image, inspired by Jessica’s leaves. This speaks to the easy, creative group camaraderie of these students. They work so well together as they climbing into their creativity. She preferred to show me her sketch book though. What an amazing illustrator she is, and she works at it. She had sketches of hands and feet, household scenes, landscapes and images of her imagination done in pencil, ink and watercolours. The environment is a huge concern for her and she feels that instead of talking to people about the importance of these issues, she draws them into her images when they can discover and understand themselves. These are powerful images.

These 11 and 12th graders along with their mutually interested classmates are thinking about their future and have started a club to work together crafting their portfolios that will take them into their next level of learning. They are inspired and pro-active and with such wonderful teachers supporting them, they will go far.

Look for their work in May at our big Roundhouse opening and in their beautiful Lord Byng Gallery during the weekend event.

You will likely be inspired.

Jon Hartley-Folz jhartley@vsb.bc.ca