Portfolio provides an environment to continue the introductory level art classes and can also be taken as preparation for the Honors class. Portfolio allows in-depth investigation of ideas and build on the craftsmanship begun during an introductory level class. Assignments to further develop technical skills in a variety of media are interspersed with independent projects. Students play a role in developing the direction of the course and in writing their own assessment criteria.
PORTFOLIO Lucas Cabral
Lucas is a 10th grader, that’s class of '27, who’s also now in his second year at Allendale Columbia. He began his art journey in his middle school years, back in California. Lucas continued on his art skills after moving to Rochester, NY back in 2023. He enjoys relaxing at home with his family and his two dogs, and taking time to listen to music with records while doing his work, at home.
He has taken 3-D Art and Painting courses while at AC, he is excited to keep on trying different types of art styles. Recently, he has worked with photography for two projects this year. He was glad with the results for both of them, and is presenting one of them at this year’s show. Aside from art, he’s also worked on this year’s sophomore forum as a writer. He thanks you for coming to this year’s event, and hopes you enjoy your time!
PORTFOLIO
Jess Chapados
Jessica Chapados is a junior at Allendale Columbia School. A lifelong resident of Rochester, she loves to travel and draw inspiration from the places she visits. Jessica has had a passion for art since she was a child and enjoys creating pieces that bring her joy and allow her to express herself.
Outside of the studio, Jessica is an accomplished runner. She competes in cross country, as well as indoor and outdoor track, and qualified for the state championships in cross country this past fall. In college, Jessica plans to study engineering, blending her creative mindset with problem-solving and innovation.
PORTFOLIO Ryan D’Arduini
PORTFOLIO
Ryan is a senior at Allendale Columbia. He loves to play basketball whenever possible. He plays AAU basketball in the spring and he also plays varsity basketball for HAC. Ryan also enjoys playing video games, spending time with his girlfriend, and relaxing. Something other than basketball that Ryan is really passionate about is tattoos. He really thinks the whole concept of tattoos is something that should be talked about more because of the body art and how it can express who people are. Another one of Ryan’s favorite hobbies is going to car shows and customizing his car.
Bri D’Lallo
Bri D’Lallo is a senior at Allendale Columbia who wants to become an RN. She has recently gone to Spencerport High School for her freshman and sophomore years. To begin her art journey, she joined an art class during her junior year at AC. She recently has been able to reward herself with the greatest prize, to be graduating this year. And has worked through two AP classes of both Chemistry and Statistics. This year, she has worked on multiple different forms of art like photography and clay, creating wonderful pieces that everyone around her adores. Her favorite project that she liked the most was “Making the Invisible Visible” since it had a certain theme that she really wanted to put into that month’s project. She wishes everyone to have a great time looking over everyone’s art in all classes for this event!
PORTFOLIO
Michael Zurell
Michael Zurell is a senior at Allendale Columbia. He plays baseball and airsoft, and officiates ice hockey after playing for 10 years. Photography is his main medium. He likes to capture elation, joy, and serenity in most of his photography. He started taking the hobby seriously in the fall of 2023 and purchased a new camera to further his passion in December of that year. Since then he has shot prom photos, high school sports, nature, and more.
HONORS + HONORS 2
Honors is an immersive, symposium-style course that will allow committed students to work in a variety of media at an advanced level. Students cooperate in developing the course, plan a personalized course of study, and propose projects with their peers and teacher. Students conclude the year with a significant portfolio of work, creating a digital or hand-rendered sketchbook of research and an online portfolio as they
Honors 1
progress. Through discussions, research, and critiques, each member of the group develops a broad artistic vocabulary and critiquing skills and is exposed to a variety of teaching. The class schedule is divided among studio time, critiques and exchanges, visiting teachers and artists, and work with professionals at galleries, universities, and museums in Rochester. The course concludes with each student hanging an exhibition of the work and writing a thesis statement.
Katie Chapados
Katie Chapados is currently an 11th-grade student at Allendale Columbia School, where she has been enrolled since 7th grade. Before that, she attended Trinity Montessori School. Since joining Allendale, she has participated in art classes every year, focusing primarily on photography. Katie participates in cross country and track throughout the year, two seasons of track and one of cross country.
I like to focus on nature in my artwork, especially flowers. I use them a lot in my pieces because I think they add beauty, life, and a sense of calm. I also enjoy using warm colors like red, yellow, and orange to create a cozy, homey feeling. In one piece, I even used lights to make it feel warmer and more inviting. Another theme I like to explore is beauty, both on the outside and the inside. I want my art to show that beauty isn’t just about how something looks, but also about the feeling it gives. Through my work, I try to create something that feels a little personal, like a reflection of my core values.
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Ella is a Senior at Allendale Columbia School and an artist who approaches their art with adventure and curiosity. They enjoy experimenting with new materials to express their creativity. For Ella, art is not about the final product but about the joy and excitement of the creative process itself. Her work challenges traditional notions of art, inviting viewers to join them on a playful journey of exploration and discovery.
Ella Herberger
When Ella is not creating, she can often be found reading both fantasy novels and historical documents. These personal interests deeply influence her work, adding layers of meaning and depth to each piece. Through her art, Ella seeks to share her enjoyment of creating with others, encouraging everyone to find joy and creativity in everyday life. When Ella is not reading, she can be found swimming, teaching swim lessons, and lifeguarding. She has been swimming on the HAC swim team since 7th grade and on the Varsity team since 9th grade. Ella plays the oboe in our Advanced Ensemble; she has been playing since 4th grade. This year, Ella starred in the Upper School
musical, Once Upon A Mattress. For the last two years she has danced and sung in a show choir which is a part of 5 Points Performance Company. Next year Ella is very excited to attend Smith College, and plans to major in history.
My collection displayed in this show explores themes of whimsy and imagination through color, texture, and a wide variety of materials. Each of the pieces is made through a process of vivid internal imagery and experimentation, allowing for both problem solving and adaptation.
The first piece I worked on this year was A Walk in the Woods, which was inspired by the feeling of calm and quiet in the woods. I drew a lot of inspiration for this piece from memories of playing pretend in the woods with my brother, which influenced the heightened color scheme and fantasy-like qualities. This painting presented some challenges, as I am not used to working on such a large scale, and I limited myself to solely using a pallet knife in order to add the texture to the leaves. Overall, both making and looking at this painting makes me feel calm and relaxed, the same way one would feel on A Walk in the Woods.
frustration) I ended up with a piece of art that I like. I feel as though the bright colors and fairytale feel of Overgrown shows my style, and the creation process is a great example of how I work.
My final, and largest, piece is Textile, and boy, was this an experience. The idea for Textile came to me at random when I remembered that the art room had dress forms. A dress, fantastical and gravity defying, made of a story, of a book, the home to fantasy and imagination. While the image was strong in my head, I had no idea how to make a somewhat wearable dress using paper. After many late nights of thinking and hours in the art room (and almost throwing the grommets across the room), I managed to create a bodice that would hopefully fit me, and worked for what I wanted. Then came the paper and hot glue. Slowly but enthusiastically, I carefully added each page, finishing with the shoulder frill. Finally, somehow, I had made a dress (the how is hot glue, so much hot glue, I have so many burns on my fingers). My goal for this piece was to make something that I had fun making, and that I enjoyed.
When given the option to pick between drawing a black-and-white still life and one full of color, I had to go with the color. Even though I did not have much experience with chalk pastels, I loved the brightness of the second still life. Through using a new medium, I was able to exaggerate the saturation of the colors, giving my work a heightened feel. While working on this piece I immensely enjoyed looking at and working with the color combination of Green, Orange, Pink.
Overgrown is simply overflowing with whimsy and color, and was a learning process, making it one of the best examples of how I make my work. I immediately saw a vision in my head of what I wanted to make for my box, the mushrooms, the mirror of water, the vegetation, but as I worked, I had more and more ideas. What if I added shelf mushrooms? What if I added hanging flowers? What if I glued the leaves to wood pieces? While I had many initial ideas on how I wanted to make each object, sometimes I ran into road blocks. The resin dried wrong, the cricket had issues cutting the paper I had, but after finding solutions (and maybe a bit of banging my head on the table in
My piece They Don’t Care About Us is very different from my others, so much so that I debated even showing it. I have many strong opinions about our world right now, but my art is not normally the place I express them. When given the prompt Action and Activism, I had many ideas on what issue I wanted to show in my piece, but I chose one that I feel affects me and my peers the most. The issue of gun violence in America, especially in schools, is in the back of every school age child’s mind. They Don’t Care About Us is supposed to instill feelings of horror and anger in the people who see it, it is supposed to show a very sad and sadly true reality.
My art has no real inspiration or message in the traditional sense, but rather, I feel, is a representation of my own love of making and imagination. My choices in subject, color, material are simply based on what I wish to do at the moment. While each piece might have other meanings or feelings put into it, the main point I think is that I had fun with it, and did what I wanted to do. There is nothing I love more than putting on a good audio book and working on art. I think my goal with my work is simply to enjoy making it, and that maybe others will start making it to enjoy as well.
Honors 1 Shay Hyland Houser
Shay Hyland is a senior at Allendale Columbia. Art has always been a hobby for her—it’s a space where she can be creative, spontaneous, and be herself. Shay loves being creative, whether she is writing, making art, or working on a new idea. Creativity helps her put her thoughts into a tangible art piece for others to understand, or view through their own lens of interpretation. Art allows Shay to have the freedom to express her thoughts that she can’t necessarily put into words.
She looks forward to attending the Golisano Institute for Business and Entrepreneurship this fall. Shay is excited to take what she has learned through art and apply it to a future career. She believes creativity is an essential part of leadership and innovation, and wants to build a career where combining artistic thinking with business skills. Through her art, she hopes to continue growing as both a creative person and a future entrepreneur.
Art is a powerful form of self-expression and an outlet for creativity, and as a senior at Allendale Columbia, I use my interest in art to explore personal meaning while being creative and free.
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TAYLER PERKINS
Tayler Perkins is a senior at Allendale Columbia. She plans to attend Saint John Fisher University in the fall to study marketing. Tayler spends her time travelling, enjoying nature and hanging out with her friends. She works at a pizza shop and a barn where she also takes riding lessons. She has four dogs, three of them are huskies and one is a german shepherd. Over the summer she took in a feral cat from the barn and now lives with her. Tayler has two sisters, one older and one younger. She leases a horse named Royal and a pony named Sven.
Tayler enjoys photography whether it’s digital or film. She also likes to make 3d art which you can see in her piece Plastic Tide and Through the Frame of Sisterhood. You can see her photography in her piece called Home is Where the Paws Are. The theme she was given for this piece is Notions of Home. This picture depicts a series of photos of her dog in her room. Her dog is what she looks forward to when she comes home. Her piece Plastic Tide was made for the theme, Action and Activism. This piece shows a photo of a body of water with sea animals made out of trash. This shows the issue of plastic and garbage ending up in the ocean from people poorly disposing of it. Her third piece, Through the Frame of Sisterhood, is a shadow box of things Tayler values. She values her family and has made a living room setting with a fireplace, chair and lamp. Above the fireplace is a picture of her with her sisters. She chose this picture because it is one of her earliest memories with her sisters. She values her sisters over everything else in her life. Her last piece called Gems in Bloom is a watercolor of a hibiscus in which she used diamond painting over top. This was her independent project to finish off her year as a senior at the Allendale Columbia School.
Honors 1 Makayla Putney
Makayla Putney is a mixed media artist based in Rochester, New York, originally from North Carolina. Currently a junior in high school, Makayla has been drawing since early childhood, but her passion for art has grown into something more intentional and personal in recent years. Her current body of work includes graphite drawings, clay sculptures, and mixed media pieces.
She is particularly proud of her graphite work, which has evolved significantly as her technical skill and artistic voice have grown. She also has a natural hand for clay and a love for faces—both realistic and expressive—and finds joy in exploring human emotion through physical media.
Makayla’s creative life extends beyond the studio. She enjoys reading fantasy novels with her cats, sipping coffee, and training in gymnastics at her local gym with her lifelong best friend. As a gymnastics coach for young children, she brings the same sense of patience, curiosity, and creativity to her coaching as she does to her artwork. The energy she gains from movement, storytelling, and connection with others all feed into the work she creates.
around me. Whether I’m working in graphite, clay, or mixed media, I’m always hoping to express something between beauty and honesty. I want my art to express things that are hard to put into words.
In life, we meet many people. Most stay in the background, but some leave a lasting impact. These deeper connections mirror how I create: layered, evolving, and personal. Just as we connect with others physically, emotionally, and mentally, I hope viewers can connect with my work in the same ways.
Physically, we notice the materials and textures. Emotionally, we feel the mood—grief, hope, love. Mentally, we begin to understand the choices and intentions behind the piece. Through these layers, I invite viewers to not only see my work, but feel it—and maybe glimpse the world as I do.
One piece in this show, Dance with Death, shows a skeletal hand and a human hand reaching for each other. It explores the complex relationship between life and death—how we interact with loss at a young age. As teens, many of us face grief but aren’t taught how to process it. This piece speaks to the quiet, emotional bond between the living and the dead.
Another piece includes real dried flowers within a graphite drawing, symbolizing preservation—of beauty, memory, emotion. My process shifts with each piece, but I always seek contrast and texture that feels grounded and expressive.
She hopes to continue growing as an artist while exploring a future in fields where creativity and communication intersect.
My work is deeply connected to how I experience emotion and reflect on the world
The work on display is meant to help you connect—not just with the art, but with me as the artist. See it through your eyes. I hope it makes you feel something. Whether that’s comfort or discomfort, I believe both are powerful. Creating is deeply personal for me, and I hope it speaks to something in you, just as it speaks for something in me.
Honors 2 Siena ArdizZone
Siena is a senior at Allendale Columbia, and a dancer outside of school. During her high school career, she has been awarded the Kevin Stein Class of 1982 Art Prize, as well as a Scholastic Honorable Mention, Gold Key, and Silver Medal for photography. Siena’s focus is on photography and integrating movement into it. She enjoys taking photos of dancers as well as capturing emotion in the form of portraits.
I’ve always loved doing art. As I grew older, though, and became busier outside of school, I lacked the time to do art for fun. I took a couple of drawing and painting classes throughout high school, but I’ve never been the best at realistic drawing and painting, and therefore didn’t enjoy them a lot. This is why photography became my medium of choice. I started photography when I was around 8 and was immediately intrigued by it. Like my other experience with art, though, I grew away from it since I became so busy. I went back to it in 9th grade to learn more about it in digital and darkroom photography. Those became two of my favorite classes I have ever taken. I took some photos outside of school of flowers, and cityscapes, but didn’t take the step to explore my interest in photography any deeper than that. Finally last year I decided to take Advanced Photography. This is when my love for photography came back full force and I started exploring more not only in class, but also by doing photoshoots outside of class. In January, I did my first ever dance photoshoot and it turned out better than I thought it would. After this photoshoot, I couldn’t
help but explore more places to take photos and think of ways I could improve them. Ever since then, I have been consistently taking photos outside of school, whether that be dance photography, film photography, or photographing whatever catches my eye.
At the beginning of the year I was happy with how far I had come in my photographs but I was frustrated because I didn’t feel like my photos were making the viewer feel any emotions. I had some very strong photos, but they didn’t portray a story. This led to my main theme for my photography this year: tension. I explored physical, metaphorical and emotional tension which can be seen through my photo Squeeze, and my Feminine Rage series. Metaphorical, suggestive, and emotional tension can be demonstrated through my photos of dance, movement, and screaming. Dance is something that takes a lot of tension to accomplish, physically and mentally, but may not be incredibly visible since it can look so smooth and effortless. I tried to portray this tension in my photo Bend. For my final project I wanted to try something different while still aligning with my theme of tension. I still wanted to incorporate dance but I wanted to take photos that made me feel something. My final project had two aspects: movement and rage. Many of my photos were taken with long exposure, something I have struggled with doing successfully for years. The rage portion of my final project is what was most out of my comfort zone, but also the ones that ended up being my favorites. The theme for my 6 photo series is feminine rage and how women are taught to hold in their anger and emotions from a very young age. Many of these photos include a double exposure to demonstrate how women have mastered hiding their emotions even if they feel extreme anger on the inside. I think over the year, my photos have evolved from not only being strong, but having emotion as well.
Honors 2 Marina Ellmaker
Marina is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She participates in the school yearbook and is on the volleyball team. In her free time, Marina enjoys shopping, playing with her dog, traveling and doing different art projects.
My childhood consisted of doing the usual arts and crafts like drawing with twisty crayons, finger painting, and foam stickers. Gradually as I got older I became interested in doodling small designs and other simple art projects, but my true creativity didn’t come out until I was around eight or nine. I was diagnosed with anxiety at a young age and had trouble dealing with it. I tried breathing strategies and counseling, which showed me that I can use art to help relieve my anxiety. I started practicing art more regularly and found that it gave me a sense of peace and relief from the things in the big and changing world. Eventually art became more than something to help my anxiety and I truly enjoyed it as a hobby, which leads up to my middle and high school years where I have taken the fundamentals of art and created my own pieces of work I’m proud of. Throughout my years of art I have learned and used many different media and materials.
It has taken me a while to get comfortable with certain media and materials but I have mainly focused on gouache, photography, other sculpture materials, clay and more. I have focused on these materials because I have found the most success when I use them and I enjoy all the possibilities that can come from using them. I have found that clay and other sculpture materials have worked the best for me this year, as I enjoy creating 3D elements that invoke feelings of interest and curiosity.
I have always centered my artwork around bright and colorful themes as well as sometimes theming my work around the beach and tropical themes. The theme of bright and colorful is very
meaningful to me because I want to convey in my artwork something that represents me, and bright and color does just that. I have explored many different media this year. I started the year off with a ceramic jar that looks like a cake. I tried a new technique where I created a frosting-like texture with slip and then piped it onto my ceramic cake to give it a realistic look. I have four other pieces of artwork that will be in the show. The first is a sculpture of a man and woman hugging with two anatomically realistic hearts inside of them. They are constructed out of Saran Wrap and clear tape and the hearts are made out of air dry clay. This was my final project of the year and I wanted it to be meaningful and unlike anything I had ever done. My next piece in the show is an embroidered tote bag. I embroidered a hibiscus flower onto it and used different stitches to create it. I used a reference photo that I took at the garden conservatory. I love anything tropical so I knew that a hibiscus would be a great choice and the tote bag is tie-dyed with bright floral green colors that complement the pink hibiscus perfectly. My fourth piece is a gouache painting of a canyon like rock in the desert. I have been watching a lot of nature documentaries and was inspired by some national parks to create this landscape. I added texture to the rock by painting it with a palette knife and it almost gives an Eric Carle style to it. My final piece is a series of photography. I haven’t done much photography throughout my years in art, so this year that was one thing that I wanted to explore. I’m doing three pictures. The subject is a mouth with different pieces of fruit in it. I had fun with this one because I got to collaborate with one of my friends who modeled for me.
After creating my artwork I have learned that it’s ok to find one specific medium you enjoy working with and that you don’t have to do a bunch of different things. If you find something that you’re good at, you should stick with it instead of trying to be good at everything. I want the viewers of my work to see how much I enjoy making art and hopefully understand who I am as a person.
Honors 2 YUEING HEI MAI
Honors 2 Caitlin Swartz
Caitlin Swartz is a senior at Allendale Columbia, and is one of the senior editors of the AC yearbook. During her upper school career, Caitlin has received multiple art awards, including the Kevin Stein Class of 1982 Art Prize, the Dean’s Award from the School of Art at RIT, and a Scholastic Gold Key for drawing and illustration.
She loves creating art that includes elements of nature, as it has been an inspiration for her since childhood. Childhood is another theme throughout most of Caitlin’s art pieces for this show. She enjoys conveying childhood memories into art, allowing the viewer to look into a snapshot of her life.
As it is my senior year at Allendale Columbia, I knew that I wanted to have a consistent pattern in the work that I made this year. I have always enjoyed creating art even as a child, so I wanted to incorporate the concept of childhood as one of my focuses for this past year. Reflecting on my past is a way to revisit both good and bad memories and include them in different art pieces. Most of my memories as a child were made in nature, so I wanted to add different elements from nature into many of my pieces as a remembrance of those memories. I used a variety of different media this year to challenge my skills, including embroidery which was completely new to me. For more familiar media, like acrylic and photography, I learned new techniques and continued sharpening skills I already learned.
Strawberry Bon Bon, i-spy with my little eye, and Goodbye are all connected through the theme of childhood. Strawberry Bon Bon is a gouache painting of, as the name suggests, a strawberry bon bon. Every year around Christmas, my parents would receive a basket of oranges from a family member and scattered among the oranges were strawberry bon bons. This painting is a tribute to that time and is meant to share similar
memories like this one in other people. Another piece that I included in this show is i-spy with my little eye. I wanted this photo to resemble a page from an I-Spy book with lots of colorful elements and familiar objects. Each object fits into a different part of my childhood or current life and is all displayed on a yellow background that sums up the typical I-Spy book page. For my final project, I wanted to include my two themes of nature and childhood in the piece. I titled the piece Goodbye because it is both a farewell to AC and it is a goodbye to the frequent visits to a family home that my grandparents own. The hills in the painting are from the view of a house, built by my great-grandfather, which is a great vacation spot during the year. The title Goodbye fits in with this because, around the beginning of this year, my family decided to stop contact with them because of an extreme political divide. Likely, I won’t be able to see this view for a while or as frequently as I used to, so the title should be a farewell. I wanted to create a painting to remember the good times that I had by using pastel “happy” colors, while the reverse side of the painting includes more gloomy colors to describe my current situation.
Tossed Out and my Embroidered Collage focus on the theme of nature. Tossed Out is a series of photographs that I took over spring break in North Carolina. Each photo has a piece of “tossed out” garbage in the photo that disrupts the scene. I wanted the different pieces of garbage to feel like they were alone tangled in the nature that surrounds them. My Embroidered Collage consists of three photos that I took at the Lamberton Conservatory. Days before I started this project I learned embroidery and the techniques I would use to stitch the flowers. I was able to stitch movement into my piece with directional stitches and I added beads to parts of the leaves and flowers to add a bit of shimmer.
Working with new and familiar mediums this year gave me the opportunity to expand upon my work conceptually and learn new skills and techniques. I wanted each medium and piece to communicate a different message, while still sharing a cohesive theme of childhood or nature.
Honors 2 ANA LUISA MENDONCA HENRIQUE
Ana is an exchange student from Brazil and a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She went to Arizona last year for her junior year and absolutely loved the experience, and decided she wanted to dive into another adventure abroad.
Ana enjoys trying new things and challenging herself. She has many passions, such as cooking, baking, reading, and creating art. Most of her work has a personal meaning. She loves creating art for special people in her life, especially her family. She feels most accomplished when she is able to transmit her love and gratitude for loved ones through her artwork.
Ana believes she inherited all her creative artistic side from her mom, Alexandra, who is her biggest inspiration for every creation. They especially love to spend time together painting canvas. She discovered this passion last year in Arizona when she decided to take a Drawing and Painting class. Before that, she had never imagined she was able to create beautiful things and express herself through art. She felt even more connected to her mom after discovering this shared passion. Since then, she never stopped exploring her creativity through different media.
Sports are also a huge part of Ana’s life. She has tried many different ones since her childhood, such as swimming, volleyball, and dancing. This year, she joined the HAC Girls Varsity Soccer team and created a lot of fun memories with them. She also discovered a passion for running when she was in Arizona and never stopped since then. She loves to spend her time at the gym lifting weights, which is another shared passion with her mom.
Ana is still uncertain about what the future holds for her, but she is beyond grateful for all the love and support she receives from her family. She is ready for whatever comes next.
Through discussions, research, and critiques, each member of the group cultivates an artistic vocabulary and critiquing skills and is exposed to a variety of research and methods for conceptual development. Students maintain a sketchbook as their primary organizational tool for visual evolution. Topics range from community-based and collaborative work to historical, cultural, and contemporary art. The course concludes with a significant independent topic chosen by each student, such as a global art investigation, art used as activism, a personal narrative in art, documentary photography, bookbinding, portrait painting, or a video short. We at Allendale Columbia School and our Center for Creativity and Entrepreneurship are incredibly proud of these 15 artists and the work that they continue to produce. Congratulations on your Art Exhibition and your pursuit of art in all facets of your lives. Many thanks to the people who made this show possible. Thank you to our Head of Upper School, Phil Schwartz and our Head of School, Shannon Baudo, for their constant support of the arts.
Amy Oliveri, Director of Creativity and Entrepreneurship
Learn more about our program at www.allendalecolumbia.org
