The Art Studio I and II classes are finishing up their last piece of artwork for the school year. The overarching theme for this past year’s art classes was ‘sparks’, so the artwork created by the art studio classes revolved around the sparks that ignited feelings in oneself.

For the final project, the ‘spark’ is the student’s favorite food. The students had to choose their favorite food, or a food that has meaning to them, and find a way to turn it into a mandala with the elements within it.

Art teacher Stacy Mannheim originally came up with the idea of having the art students work on this project at the end of the year as herself and the other art teachers thought that it would be a fun project to end the year off with. They also thought that it would be the best project to end off with.

“We thought, time management wise, it would be good,” said Mannheim.

Mannheim also thought that it would be a good design exercise for the students.

“That relates a lot to the elements and principles of design, which we talk a lot about, which are great for art and design,” said Mannheim. “Also we thought it might dovetail nicely off of our black and white graffito 3D project.”

Junior and art student Megan Brady thought that the project was quite the curveball, and very special compared to what she has done in the past.

“It’s a cool idea and I respect them for coming up with it because I couldn’t,” said Brady. “It’s out of the box and whimsical.”

Originally, Brady was going to use a bagel for the food in her project, but quickly found that she thought it was boring and she made a quick change.

“So randomly at two am I chose a sardine because it looked funky,” said Brady.

Junior art student Jameson Gruener was also a fan of the project idea.

“The idea of this last project was intriguing to me,” said Gruener, “yet it sounded very achievable for the short amount of time we had while being particularly enjoyable.”

For his mandala design, Gruener chose to use tomatoes as he finds that they are everywhere and, in his opinion, delicious.

“They are perfect plain, with some prep, or even good with a five course meal,” said Gruener.

Mannheim finds that the bigger problems students run into with the project is the fact that designing is difficult, and the biggest challenge she found is time management.

“I think the biggest challenge is, to be honest, right now it is a time thing,” said Mannheim. “And being willing to play. Being willing to try ‘Oh, how does this look here? What if I change this size?’ That’s the nature of design, being willing to try lots of possibilities to get the best one.”

The challenge with the designing is one that Gruener is facing himself with this art project.

“I’m facing the challenge of being able to blend my designs together into one cohesive product, but I’m working it out day by day,” said Gruener.

The biggest challenge Brady is facing is finding the motivation to keep going in the face of the end of the school year.

“Motivation to do anything because I’m checked out, and I’m ready to be done,” said Brady.

The overall theme of sparks for the year has had differing reactions and challenges for the students.

“I found that I couldn’t think of many sparks, which is slightly depressing, but wahoo, we’re still here,” said Brady.

Gruener found that he enjoyed the idea.

“I think the overall theme of ‘sparks’ for our art projects this year has been great, as it’s been able to provide fun, interesting projects that are interesting to me,” said Gruener.

The final mandala inspired food project has received good feedback from the students and has been a good project for the end of the year.