Article by Sylvia Chen

BLOOM UNDER BRSHES

At around 8 am, students carrying bags with art supplies entered YunHua Fang Art Studio located in Saratoga, California, walking past sculptures and drawing props covered in dust, and sat down with their sketchbooks on tables covered in black plastic sheets. Against a backdrop of newspaper articles and winning records on the classroom walls, Teacher Yunhua Fang started the class by critiquing his students’ work. “Your tone of the work is too gray, I can’t see the contrast. Focusing on the details but drawing as a whole,” Fang Laoshi said as he examined the student’s work projected on the TV, marking the work digitally through his mouse. From day to night, the sound of pens brushing through papers flled the whole studio. Fang does not tell students the exact answer to how they should solve problems in their work ofen but gives them a guideline to discover the solution themselves.

Yun Hua Fang Art Studio has been educating generations of students for over a decade. s Located in Saratoga, next to Cupertino in Silicon Valley, most of his students come from Chinese families. Uncountable parents hold high expectations of their children, and students typically come with strong artistic ambitions. For this reason, the studio has a reputation for its high student acceptance rate to top 30th colleges.

Fang ofers various types of classes for diferent age groups and art methods. Six drawing classes including basic skills and human anatomy courses; Western and Chinese painting classes; fve creative classes for diferent levels, and a Charcoal drawing class. Te intense teaching job requires him to have two classes operating at the same time. Fang is relatively strict with his students, especially with those who have high goals. He ofen pushes students to the next level by pointing out the insufcient in their work directly, helping them to reach “perfection” in techniques and the ideas behind the works.

Under Fang’s guidance, he created an unbelievable record with a hundred percent acceptance rate with more than 400 students being accepted into top colleges including Ivys. He helps students craf portfolios to showcase their uniqueness and creativity; indeed, encouraging free thinking and expression, combined with harsh training, makes his students highly competitive. As an immigrant from China who was educated at the China Academy of Art, Fang combines Western education beliefs of unlimited self-expression and arousing one’s self-consciousness in art with Eastern practices of studying diligently and training assiduously. He advocates inspiring students and igniting their passion, using art education as a medium to cultivate students’ creativity.

“Art should be said to be an expRssion of the soul.”

-- YunHua Fang

The world desires more creativity than ever before chapter one

Living in a highly technology-based and competitive environment like Silicon Valley, Yunhua Fang realized that developing one’s creativity is the only way to bloom in a world of information and fast evolving like today. Tere are many studies done on how art develops one’s creativity skills. According to “ Te Importance of Art Education in the Classroom,” the value of embedding art education includes imaginative skills building, social interactions, and emotional regulation (Heal). It also gives students a bigger possibility to be interested in creative expression and to communicate their ideas visually.

With the advancement of technology and new inventions in tools, the methods of making art have signifcantly changed, and the development and popularity of digital art bring more possibilities to creative industries, not only design and illustration but also fne art. Te tools of artistic expression have expanded. From 2D to 3D, digital tools became the other biggest art tool besides traditional drawing. Yun Hua Fang Art Studio ofers creative classes to students with the opportunity to express their ideas in the form of art regardless of materials and dimensions.

But why is creativity important today? From Fang’s perspective, “With current AI technology, many people’s jobs have actually been replaced. In other words, what is needed more in the future is brain power rather than simple labor”. Both the San Francisco startup OpenAI and Emma Goldberg voiced concern about AI’s potential to negatively impact jobs. Tey noted that AI has the capacity to automate the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs worldwide (A.I.’s Treat to Jobs Prompts Question of Who Protects Workers.). From the perspective of agricultural society, creativity is only required in daily problem-solving situations. However, the advancement of technology and industrialization has made our world today more information-based than ever before. From basic electricity to artifcial intelligence, and the broad accessibility of diverse information, creativity is the root of innovation. Fang’s perspective on the issue draws him to educate his students to pursue a way of issue thinking and creativity on a diferent level. He encourages his students to create the “one and only” idea without the limitation of habitual thinking. And demonstrate the idea visually through their skilled art techniques. He claims that it is very challenging to create things that are brand new because what we see every day has been created by others. Countless people are doing repetitive jobs that can possibly be replaced by technology in the future, but what cannot be replaced is creativity.

“With current AI technology, many people’s jobs have actually been replaced. In other words, what is needed more in the future is brain power rather than simple labor”.

-- YunHua Fang

Unravel the Secret of College Art Portfolio

chapter two

Beyond his regular classes, Yun Hua Fang helps students to build art portfolios. In the US college admission system, only art colleges and top universities like Ivys accept portfolios among students’ other admission materials. Colleges desire to see one’s uniqueness through their admission materials, the portfolio is an excellent opportunity to “introduce” yourself to these admission ofces. For students with non-academic skills, this option can be even more efective than regulated grades and scores.

According to the ofcial information of port-

“In fact, to a large extent, it expresses one’s own spiritual level, which belongs to the soul... This may be real art”.

-- Yunhua fang

“Write the temperament in your heart.”

-- Yunhua fang

folio submission requirements from the Rhode Island School of Design website, students should fully refect a range of ideas, perspectives, curiosity, and experimentation in their portfolio, including fnished and 1-2 unfnished planning pieces to show the thinking process. Tey especially value unique perspectives and problem-solving and the student’s technical skills shown in the works. Another private college Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in NYC, founded by inventor, industrialist, and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, has a slightly diferent requirement for the portfolio but the same motivation behind it. Tey ofer students a “Home Test” afer completing the Common App. Students are required to submit their works that are created based on specifc topics that are ofen very abstract and interpretative such as “A view from the inside of feedback loop” (Te Cooper Union), along with a sketchbook to show their brainstorming process and how they interpret them in visual form. Its purpose is to see students’ creativity and problem-solving skills in a limited time, showing their perspective on these topics provided by the admission ofce.

Yunhua Fang combined years of art education experience and decided to make portfolio counseling into his class. He emphasizes students should fnd the diferent angles of a topic, and express personal interpretations through their unique visual art styles. “Because only in this way can the school’s elite education spark more sparks and create a brand new world,” Fang said.

Fang Laoshi claims that it was not only the grade of those 400 students that made them selected but also their outstanding portfolio that fully showcased their spirits. He thinks academic grades and scores should not be the only metric for evaluating a student: “A person may be very creative, but his ac-

ademic performance is poor, and his SAT score may be very low” (Fang). Tese top colleges may value a student’s spirit that is shown more than their scores. His past student Miss Ma got into Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art with her portfolio and an imperfect SAT score out of 2400. But her spirit of rigorous work attitude and enquiring mind stood out. Another good example is his past student Gong Zhixuan, who graduated from Yunhua Fang Art Studio in 2020 and is now studying at Princeton University. He re-enrolled in the portfolio class and remade a brand-new art portfolio in 2019. “Later I asked him, do you have any regrets? You are still working hard throughout the summer and making a portfolio. He said no. He said I learned a lot again,” said Fang.

WHat lies ahead

Te fast-developing technology and informational society are putting large amounts of pressure on some industries. Yunhua Fang believes that creativity is the key to success in this environment. He thinks that the essence of education should be letting the students understand the skill to discover the reasons and laws inside of knowledge. Furthermore, with a signifcant track record of his students’ acceptance rates, he found that the key to success in art portfolios lies in encouraging students to showcase their unique interpretations and personal styles on the given topics. Having attended Te China Academy of Art and learning the diferent educational philosophies in China and the US inspired him to establish a new system of teaching creativity to his students. His passion for the beauty of Western and Eastern art motivated him to open the Traditional Oil Painting class and the Chinese Painting class in his art studio.

While practicing his beliefs in education in the multicultural society of Silicon Valley, Fang discovered that there are too many distractions and temptations from technology among students. But the intention matters in a high-pressure environment like this, and students are told to learn and know everything regardless of their interests. Ultimately, Fang recommends students should focus on one or two subjects and delve into them, trusting that their passion, time, and painstaking efort will eventually bloom.

About the Author

Sylvia (Shuhan) Chen, is a Mountain View High School student who joined Freestyle Academy Design in 2023. Chen started her art education at the age of three, driven by a strong interest in art and fashion, she moved with her family to the United States in 2019 afer graduating from elementary school in the Chinese mainland. Since art and fashion have always been her primary interests, she is looking forward to majoring in them in college en route to a career as a fashion designer.