Honors and Portfolio Thesis Show and Spring Exhibition 2023 at The Yards

HONORS

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 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.

PORTFOLIO

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.

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. Students conclude the class with a portfolio of work and an artist’s statement.

PANTONE 5555 Lilah Costanzo

PANTONE 2706 Ellie Feindel

PANTONE 535 Nya Hauser

PANTONE 1797 Maya Schwartz

PANTONE 14-3612 Grace Van Bortel

PANTONE 5405 Cameron Conheady

PANTONE 635 Faith Faulkner

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PANTONE 21 Maya Voloshin

PANTONE 15-1247 Natalia Dandrea

PANTONE 7493 Caitlin Swartz

PANTONE 14-1911 Tayler Perkins

PANTONE 5210 Gwen Bains

PANTONE 18-4525 Marina Ellmaker

PANTONE 199 Shay Hyland-Houser

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Lilah Costanzo

Lilah is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She has been involved in visual and performing arts since she was little, and she devotes much of her free time to creating music and art. Lilah plans on pursuing French horn performance at the Eastman School of Music next fall, and she hopes to continue creating art throughout college. This year, Lilah has focused on gaining more experience with painting and drawing, trying out some new mediums like ballpoint pen, body paint, and colored pencil. Some of her recent artwork has been exhibited at the “Through the Student Lens” event at Image City Photography Gallery and Nazareth College’s “Shared Spaces” exhibition.

LILAH COSTANZO THESIS STATEMENT

Throughout high school, I have focused on capturing realistic images through various paint and drawing mediums. At first, I struggled to create perfect, lifelike renditions. However, nothing hindered my imagination as I wove my own twists into seemingly ordinary objects. I explored the vastness of our universe and the cosmos, turned to vivid colors and shapes to portray more surreal scenes, and eventually opened up to the challenge of drawing the human face.Through each phase of my artwork, my technique gradually evolved and grew. Hours of intense focus and dedication allowed me to achieve a high level of detail, and the accuracy of my artwork steadily increased. This year, I have taken more risks with my artwork. I maintained my precision and realism while shifting my focus to new mediums and types of art, planning everything around references I made myself. Through pen and ink, colored pencils, body paint, and mural art, I traveled outside of my comfort zone to challenge and expand the possibilities of expressing myself.

Vision in Blue, Girl in Red, Beet, the still life, and my mural all embody the vibrant and bold side of my imagination as an artist. I dove head-first into each of these projects, well aware they were more ambitious than my class time in school would allow. Rather than play it safe, I tested my limits by exploring the new

mediums of pen, body paint, and colored pencil, and scaling my usual canvas size up to encompass an entire wall. I used these mediums to turn the ordinary subjects into wild, interesting, or vivid pieces of art, maintaining a sense of realism within each color, texture, and composition. In the Vision piece, simple pictures of my family narrowed down to only the eyes portray a deeper sense of connection, and the fine details of blue pen contribute to the tone of the overall work. In Girl in Red and Beet, the photography captures elements of my normal life in striking ways, a hand holding the beet fresh out of the garden and my sister splashed in colorful paint (a flashy take on Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring). For the still life, I used colored pencils to make a smooth, saturated rendition of the objects I saw in front of me, working slowly to capture every detail in the glass and metal reflection. Lastly, the mural, bursting with life, was a project that allowed me to practice my patience and focus while working on the largest piece of art I’ve ever done.

All of my projects this year reflect a deep passion and have challenged my limits as an artist, taking on new mediums and requiring hours of steady, detailed work. I found a new sense of originality in the creative process this year, as I strove to make each piece entirely my own through the references, planning, and sketches. Rather than using other people’s creations and photos as references, I painted from my own photography, drew my own family from images I printed and ripped up myself, made my own origami to photograph, and more. After exploring this gallery, I hope viewers feel inspired to see the beauty in their own lives.

Mural

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Ellie Feindel

Ellie is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She was born and raised in Damariscotta, Maine before moving to Rochester when she was 12. She loves to spend time outside and her passion for the natural world and interest in climate and sustainability are reflected in her work. Her favorite mediums to work in are fashion and textiles as well as cyanotypes.

She has received a few awards during her time at AC: a Scholastic Silver Key Award for her piece entitled Pulse, the RIT Creativity and Innovation Award, and will be receiving a Creativity and Entrepreneurship Diploma when she graduates this Spring. Next year, she will attend Bard College and hopes to continue to explore her interest in all forms of art.

ELLIE FEINDEL THESIS STATEMENT

In my freshman year, I experimented with taking a semester course about darkroom photography and a semester course about digital photography. I absolutely fell in love with the process of shooting and developing film. It was entrancing to watch an image appear on a piece of photo paper that was completely blank just moments before placing it into a chemical bath. I took digital photography online during the pandemic and began going on walks near my house to take photos. This seemingly simple activity inspired me to begin filming short clips on my phone of anything that I found beautiful. Through intentionally searching for beauty in my day to day life, I became more appreciative of life and my environment and was able to capture memories that may have otherwise slipped away. In my junior year, I learned about an alternative form of photographic printing that uses UV light, called cyanotypes. I experimented with cyanotype printing on paper as well as fabric to create textiles and wearable art.

Pulse, Bag of Memories, and Dentelle Blouse are all wearable art pieces. While I have experimented with making my own clothing before, these projects were different in that they are meant to convey a message or story rather than exist purely for aesthetics. Until told to think about a thesis for my honors art portfolio, I had not realized that my work is connected by a theme. Through reflection I noticed that my work this year has focused much on the implications of one’s environment on their development. Pulse literally utilizes the environment in the form of LEDs reacting to the surrounding sound to create the illuminated

heartbeat effect. It also more figuratively approaches the theme with the idea of wearing one’s heart externally, allowing one to be completely vulnerable to their environment. Leaving the heart visibly exposed to others can result in a heart that is battered and torn or can strengthen its pulse and bring one closer to their surroundings.

Bag of Memories and Dentelle Blouse are both based on the concept of matrilineality and how generations of the women in my family are connected to each other. The Bag of Memories depicts cyanotype prints of photos of my great grandmother, grandmother, mother, as well as my sister and I. The environment in which my foremothers were raised affected their identities and the way they went on to raise their daughters. I wanted to create a literal bag to hold these generations of memories passed on from mothers to daughters. In a similar theme the Dentelle Blouse is made from an old lace tablecloth that was passed on from my grandmother’s mother, to her, and then to me. The lace tablecloth was yellowed with age from years of use for sunday breakfasts, picnic lunches, and dinner parties. Every fiber of the textile is infused with a moment of my great grandmother’s and grandmother’s life that I will never know. My grandmother was also the one who taught me to sew, as her mother taught her, and so I decided to make this blouse as a way to connect with them through this passion for sewing that we all shared.

I encountered many problems throughout creating these pieces and struggled because very often my ideas outstretched the time and ability that I had to make them come to fruition. However, I learned that simplicity is not a bad thing and that it can actually be very beautiful. I also realized how important it is to be aware of my environment and how it has shaped my identity whether I was conscious of it or not.

Reflection, cyanotype experimentation

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Nya Hauser

Nya is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She has lived in Rochester her whole life, but loves to travel, learn about other cultures, and experience their cuisines. Her favorite place to which she traveled has been Stockholm, Sweden, where people moved much slower throughout their day. The leisurely approach to life allowed her to explore the wild life and she brought back with her a camera roll full of snails.

She discovered her love for photography in middle school and it has flourished even more every year since then. From film to digital, black and white to color, she has found interest in every form. She has won a Silver Key from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and has had her art in multiple local galleries. Nya plans to attend Rochester Institute of Technology for Photographic and Imaging Arts: Visual Media.

NYA HAUSER THESIS STATEMENT

Coming into high school I found meaning in my art. It became more about telling a story and I found myself wanting to show a story through all of my art. The pivotal point in the drive behind my art surfaced during lockdown; that time allowed me to learn more about myself and my beliefs, which heavily influenced my art when I came back to school. The decline of women’s rights and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement are two events that have and continue to shape me as an individual and how I see the world.

Three of my pieces in this show are clear representations of who I am at my core. MY body and Legacies represent activism and my expression for my rights as a human being. Speaking on topics of Women’s rights and the support of Black creators within the Black community. My Untitled piece that was produced under a project entitled Reflection is a hand in the form of the tree. What may not be as clear about this piece is that it is intended to be the ASL (American Sign Language) sign for a tree representing my background as a CODA (Child Of a Deaf Adult). Although these are all in mediums I don’t tend to use, they are on topic with my voice as an artist. I have found after looking through my artwork through high school that all of my work has reflected my identity in one way or

My identity is something I have been searching for throughout high school. These pieces feel to me that I have come to find who I am and what I believe in. When I look at these pieces I feel enraged at oppression and how our society is structured and that is a big part of my daily life. I hope that when you look at these pieces they inspire change even if it’s something that may seem as little as taking a class or supporting a voice that’s not being heard. Ten voices are always better than one.

Saint Olivia

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Maya Schwartz

Maya is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Rochester in 2018. She loves to create digital artwork using Procreate and Photoshop, and also has a passion for digital photography and pencil illustration. Along with the fine arts, she has a strong interest in all things related to music.

Her artwork has been recognized regionally, most recently in an exhibition at Richard Margolis’ gallery. She has participated in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and her work has been shown in multiple art exhibitions. She hopes to get her art involved in national activism someday. Her work can be found @municipalarrrrrt on Instagram.

MAYA SCHWARTZ THESIS STATEMENT

I have been obsessed with art for as long as I can remember, but what really influenced me was realizing how interesting the world around me is. Back in 2016, when traveling through the state of Wyoming, I had the realization that people are unique and that the world is insanely beautiful, and I was in a constant state of awe the entire trip because of this. When I arrived back home, I realized I wanted to capture that uniqueness and beauty to remember it forever, so I chose art as this way of remembering and reviving those feelings I once felt.

The pieces that I will be displaying are two zines (and the original works behind one of them), two photographs, and a ceramic slab that portrays a map of the city of Chicago. The mediums that I usually work in are alcohol markers, digital art, photography, and graphite, so these works were more of a challenge for me. However, I believe that

Fading

these three pieces accurately represent what I aim to do with my art, which is to invoke feelings of awe and inspire people to take action with social justice issues. The slab represents the memories I have of downtown Chicago, with the green river being a St. Patrick’s Day tradition I was in awe of as a small child. The long-exposure photographs were something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but never had the chance to do, and I believe they invoke feelings of awe as well because of the composition. The first zine is a collection of drawings I made of influential musicians that have passed away. This piece ties in with my love of character drawing and capturing people’s facial features so they can be immortalized. The other zine ties in with a theme that I often come back to: social justice. With the state of things in America right now, I needed to find a way to vent my feelings, and that way was and is often through art. So, I created this zine to cover the issues of affordable housing and the upper class.

While going through my creative process over these past few years, I have learned that art takes patience. It doesn’t magically finish itself within the span of an hour, it has to be worked on for days by a dedicated artist. And in terms of the works displayed, I would like the viewers of my work to walk away from my pieces feeling educated and in awe, just like how I felt taking that road trip across Wyoming.

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Grace Van Bortel

Grace is a senior at the Allendale Columbia School. Grace loves animals, which she is often inspired by and is seen through her art. Grace’s passion for photography started when she first took a digital photography class in the tenth grade; the same year, she adopted her dog Lucee. She began taking photographs of Lucee and grew an Instagram @lucee_ the_rescue photographing Lucee’s adventures. She feels like Instagram is an excellent way to see both her photography progress and Lucee’s growth since being rescued.

Grace also enjoys working with other media like micron pen drawing, watercolor, and oil paints. Grace has won awards at the Equisarte art shows and participated in the Image City gallery through the Student Lens show and the artist-teacher invitational. Her activities and experiences outside of art in the classroom have inspired her to create. Grace plans to study at the University of Rochester in the fall and hopes to continue to be inspired by the new atmosphere to keep creating art within the community.

GRACE VAN BORTEL THESIS STATEMENT

Over the past year, there has been a definite shift in my mindset in a positive direction. During the course of my senior year in high school, I have shifted my mindset to focusing on the things that make me happy and feel good rather than spending all of my energy on pleasing other people and conforming myself to be someone I am not. I don’t let things bother me as much as they used to, and I have found strategies to help calm my anxious, racing thoughts. I began paying more attention to the things that bring me happiness.

I have created photographs and drawings of moments, the people closest to me, and everyday life details that connect to the strong memories and emotions associated with my sense of home. In previous years, I focused my art on the sad emotions that I had experienced. Over the last year, I have been inspired to create artwork that focuses on the beautiful positive aspects of life. As a Taylor Swift lyric says, “I wanna be defined by the things that I love,” I feel very inspired by creating art to represent something that I love despite others’ opinions or anything else. Whenever I’m in a moment or a memory of happiness comes across me, I find a way to create something that I love.

I have focused mainly on photography and micron ink pen drawings. Part of my journey to improve happiness is chasing those beautiful moments. By that, I mean finding beautiful places such as glowing vibrant skies, with the people I love. I like to capture my beautiful moments in photographs that later become my favorite memories. Hand doodling is also a necessity of mine as it keeps my hands busy when I feel anxious. Over time, it seems that my anxious doodling has become sketches of focusing on the things I like around me rather than the things causing my anxiety. I like to focus on something I can see and draw as a distraction which usually becomes a still-life drawing.

Flowers in Your Hair is one of my favorite photographs because of the memory I created with my sister while taking the photo. I love flowers and hanging out with my sister, and the photo represents a favorite and meaningful memory. I’m reminded of the laughter behind her sweet grin when I glance at the photo.

I’m Home! represents so many small insignificant things to others, but it means the world to me. While I’m away, my two loyal dogs wait for me in the middle of our staircase until they hear my car pull in the driveway and then they run downstairs to greet me. This is the best part of my day; I love this moment regardless of how I feel. For this drawing, I wrote the words “I miss you” to make the entire piece, as I imagine that the dogs and I both have the words “I miss you” cross our minds throughout our time apart during the day.

Color in the Mountains is a mixed-media piece inspired by my favorite memories of hiking with my dad. I think back to my childhood and all the special memories I made. The mountains represent the actual place where we spent time, and the watercolor represents the memories in the reflection and the sky.

I have realized how beautiful all the little things in life can be and how beneficial it can be for mental health to focus on the things you love despite anything else. I want people to be inspired by whatever makes them feel good and connected by participating in the things they love.

Lucee in the Snow

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Gwen Bains

Gwen is a sophomore at Allendale Columbia School. She was born in and has always lived in Rochester, New York. She’s traveled to Florida and recently Massachusetts. She enjoys going on roadtrips as she can see many different places. Gwen’s favorite medium is photography, especially urban scenes. She likes to experiment with film photography, editing, and printing.

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5405 Cameron Conheady

Cameron is a Junior at Allendale Columbia School. He started drawing at the beginning of his sophomore year and is inspired by Japanese mangaka such as Sui Ishida, Tatsuki Fujimoto, and Kentaro Miura.

He hopes to be an author and illustrate his writing with uniquely styled digital paintings. Common themes of his work include dark fantasy, science fiction, and the absurd.

Edward Norton

Graveyard with a Painted Sky

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Natalia Dandrea

Natalia Dandrea is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She has lived in the greater Rochester area her whole life, but is moving to Durham, NH in the fall. Natalia has always loved admiring and making art, even as a young kid. In middle school, she found a passion for photography that had seemed to be passed through from her parents’ genes. Along with that, Natalia found herself to be passionate about painting, especially fish, and giving the work to her family and friends. Outside of school, Natalia focuses on horseback riding, which has given her inspiration for many projects in art class.

Natalia received the Sherman Farnham award in 2021 for making a summer workshop for kids focusing on being creative and mixing art with writing. She was also featured in the RIT multi-regional 2023 Artist Teacher Invitational. Natalia is so grateful for these opportunities to share her artwork with the world, so please enjoy!

Instagram: Natalia_Dandrea_

Koi

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Marina Ellmaker

Marina is a sophomore 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.

In almost all of her work, Marina likes to use bright colors and sticks to a theme that fits with her aesthetic. She likes working with the theme of summer and the beach. This art show will be Marina’s first of her career and she is excited to share it with everyone!

PANTONE 635 Faith Faulkner

Faith Faulkner is a senior at Allendale Columbia School. She was born and raised in Victor, New York. She has an uncontainable imagination that she often expresses through art. She discovered a talent and passion for crocheting in eighth grade and a desire to quilt in eleventh grade. She plays video games for hours on end, and creates elaborate plots for video game ideas of her own. She will attend the Rochester Institute of Technology in the fall.

Still Life

PANTONE 199 Shay Hyland Houser

Shay Hyland is a sophomore at Allendale Columbia School. She recently moved schools and previously went to Wayne Central School District. Shay has many interests, including graphic design, fashion, cosmetology, business, art, and marketing. At her previous school, she took a graphic design class, art class, and joined an art club after school. Shay was also awarded with the Larry Ruth Art Award which was presented to one student out of each class per school year. Shay views this as one of her biggest accomplishments in terms of art. At Allendale Columbia, she is taking a portfolio art class and has assisted in the background art of a recent school play. Shay also took part in her school’s sophomore forum, where she was one of four public speakers in March of 2023. Shay is undecided of her future plans after high school, although she is interested in trade school for graphic design, she does not have a plan in place. Follow on instagram @the.princess.shay

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Tayler Perkins

Tayler Perkins is a sophomore at Allendale Columbia. She lives in Penfield, New York, she loves traveling and exploring when she can. She does softball and indoor track through HAC. Apart from school Tayler loves enjoying nature and hanging out with friends.

She has a strong passion for photography, her favorite photos to take are landscapes of nature. Her favorite photographer is Fan Ho, she also loves the quote by him “I love classical music. They give me inspiration, especially during my work in the darkroom.” One of Tayler’s favorite genres is classical music so the quote closely relates to her.

Suns Down

Untitled

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Caitlin Swartz

Caitlin is in 10th grade at Allendale Columbia and is a part of the AC yearbook staff and volleyball team. In her spare time, Caitlin enjoys reading, listening to music, creating art, and playing with her six cats. She also has a passion for traveling, having been to France, England, and Iceland.

When creating art, Caitlin likes to incorporate nature into her work rather than people, and one of her favourite techniques is collaging. Caitlin also has a fondness for art history, her favorite piece being The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel.

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Maya Voloshin

Maya Voloshin is a senior at AC. She says she had such a great year in her first studio art class! She states that “It was so much fun to experiment with different mediums of art and explore different themes in art!”

With Math and Nature, I combined my love of both math and art. The prompt for this artwork was Making the Invisible Visible, which meant that we had to create a piece of art that exhibits a subject that is not always obvious, more prominent. The symmetry of nature is not something that jumps out at you right away when looking at a puddle, so that is why I chose to draw a puddle that included measurements of the radii of each ring to accentuate its pattern.

I had the most difficulty with the still life piece, as it required a lot of time and focus. I had to include the smallest of details in each element of this still life. Even though it was very difficult for me, I am very happy with how it turned out!

My inspiration for Window Views came from my enjoyment of looking out of windows, especially in my own home! I love the idea of enjoying something so simple but beautiful in the comfort of your own home. This idea was the inspiration for this piece, and I really enjoyed creating each mini painting.

Collage Plate