TABLE OF CONTENTS
22
36 PEN & PAPER PAINT DIGITAL MEDIA MULTIMEDIA POETRY & PROSE
I’ve rewritten this letter around three times now, and yet, I just can’t quite capture the emotions I’m feeling in the current moment. Wistful? Sorrowful? Happy that the endless nights of copy-editing are finally over?
…Perhaps a mix of all.
From starting on this portfolio in my freshman year of high school, barely grasping the ropes of InDesign under the guid ance of the wonderful Claire Tolles ‘22, I would have never guessed where this road would take me. Claire trusted and saw me — she saw something in me that I definitely didn’t — and confidently passed down this treasured portfolio into my hands.
I was confining. I was imprisoned by my mind, trapped behind iron bars created by words like “I don’t know what I’m doing,” and “I’m not good enough to be doing this.” I would stare blankly into the 10 in. by 10 in. white screen, wondering how I was going to pull this off.
My most distinct memory with my first Portfolio is my reaction after getting a notification that it was coming in the next day. I remember having a nightmare about the portfolios coming in different sizes, that the fonts were wrong, and that my hard work would become a laughingstock. In a state of fear, I came to school early the next day, panicking, rushed to the front office, tore open the heavy cardboard boxes, and exhaled a sigh of relief, as the portfolio, in fact, was perfectly intact and all the same size! My panic instantly became pride as I admired the glossy cover and picked through the lamented pages.
Although yes, it was an exhausting uphill mental challenge, with many late nights, aching backs, and tired eyes — I fell in love with not only the Portfolio, but graphic and magazine design as well. As someone who only strayed to the “traditional” artist hobbies, I never thought that I would like different media, too. I experimented with gradient maps, learned how to create three-dimensional text on Adobe Illustrator, played with tools I’ve never tried on Procreate, and possibly drained Pinterest of ideas through endless scrolling. The Portfolio, which was once my dreaded obligation, quickly became my doting obsession.
I cannot explain how incredibly grateful I am to be able to have had the opportunity to create and work on something like this. Thank you to everyone who has helped with the portfolio, whether fixing margins, sending out emails, providing me with last-minute art when I was missing work, or simply just giving me a shoulder to lean on.
Thank you to Ms. Hill for always hand-picking beautiful ekphrases for me to choose from — they keep getting better and thank you to Mr. U and Ms. Ballenger for always replying to my incessant emailing (even at past-bedtime hours…and Mr. U is telling me to go to sleep…) and uplifting the arts here at Laguna.
If there’s anything you take away from this portfolio or my journey in general, I hope it’s that you never stop creating. Alnever, ever stop believing in yourself.
Now, without further ado, it is with pride and honor that I present to you: the 2025 Arts Club Portfolio.
SKYSCAPE BY LUCAS AYALA GRAPHITE ON PAPER
SOARING EAGLE
BY ADHYA REDDY-HOELLE GRAPHITE ON PAPER
STUDIES
BY MADDIE BECERRA
GRAPHITE AND MARKER ON PAPER
ABDIEL COLORED SKETCH
BY MADDIE BECERRA
GRAPHITE AND MARKER ON PAPER
BUTTERFLY ON FLOWER
BY ANYA TAYLOR DRYPOINT AND COLORED PENCIL ON PAPER
BY JUDE COOPER
BALLPOINT PEN AND COLORED PENCIL ON PAPER
TRIP TO HAWAII
A POSE
BY MADDIE BECERRA
GRAPHITE ON PAPER
STRIKE
MASKED GIRL
BY ELISHA WU GRAPHITE ON PAPER
GREEK STATUE STUDY
BY DIONNE PETERSON GRAPHITE ON PAPER
BY DIONNE PETERSON GRAPHITE ON PAPER
GIRL WEARING HIJAB
GREEK SUNSET
BY SOFIA HERRON DRYPOINT AND WATERCOLOR ON PAPER
FLOWER STUDY
BY DIONNE PETERSON ACRYLIC ON PAPER
CRYING GIRL
BY ELISHA WU
WATERCOLOR ON PAPER
A CLOUDY DAY BY LUCAS AYALA ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
FROG PEEKING THROUGH LEAVES
BY DAPHNE SHIEBLER WATERCOLOR AND COLORED PENCIL ON PAPER
RED WIDOWS BY HAYDEN ABEYSEKERA
WATERCOLOR ON PAPER
WINDOW
PERSPECTIVE BY LUCAS AYALA ACRYLIC ON PAPER
LEOPARD
BY DAPHNE SHIEBLER MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER
BISONS RESTING BY ROBIE POLOS CAMERA
BABY BLUE CAR
BY ROBIE POLOS CAMERA
ARTS CLUB COMPETITION : OVERALL WINNER
LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE
BY MACEY GRADIAS
PROCREATE ON IPAD
PORTRAIT OF DOG
BY ENZO JACOBSEN IPHONE
FOGGY DAY
BY CAREW RICE IPHONE
DRESSUPDOLL.COM
BY MADDIE BECERRA
PROCREATE ON IPAD
PINK & FLOWERS
BY CAMILLA JOFFREY PHOTOSHOP
BY DIONNE PETERSON PROCREATE ON IPAD
MAITREYI RAMAKRISHNAN
BY JUDE COOPER MIXED MEDIA
GECKO
ARTS CLUB COMPETITION : HONORABLE MENTION
BLUE VASE
BY MATTHEW MCDERMOTT CERAMICS
FROG IN POND
BY BRANDON FULADI CERAMICS
OMINOUS APPROACH
BY KEVIN LU CYANOTYPE
FEATHERS
BY SAGE HOLCOMBE CERAMICS
TURTLES
BY SIENA BOOTH CERAMICS
WATERMELONS
BY CHARLIE CARRINGTON CERAMICS
LEBRON JAMES
BY BAYLOR WILSON CERAMICS
CAR COLLAGE
BY ALEX EUSTICE MIXED MEDIA
BLUEBERRY PLATE
BY VIVIENNE JACOBSEN CERAMICS
BIKINI BODY
BY OLIVIA SOFRANKO CERAMICS
Hunger
INSPIRED BY FAMILY PORTRAIT BY DORR BOTHWELL
BY CAMILLA JOFFREY
I am artificial
Poisoned by your hunger
A mere child
Won’t satisfy this race.
I belong on a farm and at dinner parties
Charming guests in my party dress Imperfect but pure Sound asleep in sweet dreams Not of more.
But I am artificial
I am just another Average participant Confined to this game.
Killed before I lived
Left alone to learn to be And be amazing and inhuman
Never free
I must swallow the breeze
Consuming, crumbling my skin.
Be artificial
Don’t feel
Be a numb android
Not man I am not enough the way I am.
You made me artificial You didn’t hear me out You put fences to my endless dreams And woke me up.
The soil is radioactive
The world is tainted blue
Don’t wonder
Don’t think
Don’t live Exist
Be more
Don’t think
Don’t think.
But sometimes I think It would be beautiful
The smell of toxins
Wouldn’t linger in the soil And overload my noise
With a sting
If they let me grow On my own.
Liberty’s Fall from Grace
INSPIRED BY THE STATUE OF LIBERTY IN FRÉDÉRIC-AUGUSTE BARTHOLDI’S
STUDIO, PARIS
BY KEANU CHRISTIANSEN
A metallic mass stands in the center of the hall, A godlike arm draped in fabric clutches a pam-
Grips a lifeline like a seaman in a storm
The two explorers stumble into the austere sculpture,
Swaying their heads like nocturnal owls during winter.
Torn at the seams is the shoulder of the titan,
Lost in time is the cloaked hand, and its leaflet
The bright girls marvel at this antique, The stern sculpture bears a story, The lost limb of liberty.
Concrete Dreams
INSPIRED BY “STREAMING STREETS”
BY GEORGE WESLEY BELLOWS
BY TATIANA TAYLOR
The city hums beyond the distant sun. Time feels heavy–swollen with the weight of dismembered dreams, yet too feeble to illuminate their shattered reality.
A child cradles the somber fog, as his family horse crashes through air, thick as oil.
Workers stand in huddled awe, eyes so wide their pupils divide. Through dusty lashes and crusted truths,
They see the carriage ghanshing its wheels, biting cobblestone.
Their spirits are parched, now trampled by heaving hoofs, tired of stone, yearning for woods. Their pallid presence fades into ash, Mouths dry and hands cracked by out-of-reach desires,
dangling like candy, slipping through the cracks of the broken concrete.
The hollow-face child pulls himself forward, to watch, his father’s horse, screechscratch
Along crumbling waves of dirt, one painted with dreams of wealth and wonder,
Running to land long-gone, past, their deserted Wall Street.
Although it pains him, he accedes to the inexorable change–from their shared ambition. His father still stubborn and twine, clinging tightly, With only past in mind. His mother’s parched, pruned face wrinkled by greed, Holds her child back, a reminder of their current need.
Her love–long corroded in industrial rust. Beneath the snowfall and the rippling
Marigold Tears
INSPIRED
BY AU BOIS D’AMOUR BY CLAIRE TABOURET
BY CAMILA CUEVAS
You do not know who I am
What I am
Am I a ripple of love
Where flushed flowers blossom at my every touch
Do I take you to your desired place of querencia
Where meadows sing with sunlight tangled in their throats?
Or the cerulean hibiscus that comes alive
As you whisper promises in my ear
With marigold leaves laughing
Through the soft, syrupy, air
Am I your billow of love?
Or perhaps I am an illusion, a deception
Look closer and you will wonder Am I the willow tree that wilts
As you walk by with the wind shivering in your presence?
The marigold has tarnished
And my leaves are painted with the tears
I have cried for you
Am I the broken branches that decay by every battered promise
you always preach but never keep?
I am a lesson, not a deception
You give me the love that I cannot escape
I give you the love, that can easily be replaced
Far away, I am picturesque
But up close, you see my damage
My flowers are tinged with the toxic love you feed me
And my psithurism is foiled with the shaking and trembling of my aching heart
For I am the Forest of Love
That will always give But never wanted
AU BOIS D’AMOUR BY CLAIRE TABOURET
“Signs of Tristesse d’été”
INSPIRED BY MARY CASSATT’S SUMMERTIME
BY OLIVIA DE MEYER
Le bateau dances with the pull of liquid lace
The still water rendering tranquilité
Urges one to merge with La Terre
L’esprit at a stand still
Les canards flottent with sublime
Do they know too that time passes by?
Nous sommes parallèles
Le jour d’été my heart yearns to stay
Adorned in bonnets and flowing fabrics
Dressed to enthrall la belle nature and nothing more
A mother’s soirire smile, A daughter’s cureuse eyes
Nous contraste
Seeds to plant and flowers to bloom
The regard doré, all that nourishes
Le moment de silence, yet noetics proclaim
Oh chérie, the seasons change,
But canst I stay?
I want the warmth to stain my skin
For mère nature to breathe down my deck
To be forwards, beckon rebound with le moment
Tristesse d’été is unheard of here
Oh chérie, but the petals do fall
L’avenir is no man’s peace
But at this moment I have all I need
Regrets of a Trastevere
INSPIRED BY HEAD OF A TRASTEVERE BY HENRY FUSELI
BY HADLEIGH BOLTON
Across the Tiber, roaring its dissent
Skulks a sinister figure
And his malicious intent.
His acrimonious cry cuts the air like
The steel of his dagger flashing like
Lightning igniting the oak and it burns like
Acid as it trickles down the victim’s throat, the Cavern like deep-buried eyes made from
Stone carvings etched in his face, the scars of battles long past.
Finished is the present, he is Worshipper of Victoria, goddess of all he is a god of.
Cloyed are the gusts with the metallic tang
His mind only lament reigns. The trophy foreseen yet his chest boils
Argent truth arising, seizing.
Veni, vidi, vici, set non vici
Nothing may win from a barren loss
Strife snatches all like a gluttonous beast
Emerges as the occluded thief
A trastevere is left undone
The chasm gaping, reeling
Ochroid passion flees his frame
All prays dawn as in vain. He claims feeble movements, staggers
Alone.
Gilded Cage
INSPIRED BY SUNSET OFF CITY ISLAND BY FRANCIS AUGUSTUS SILVA
He frolics in a gilded box
The palette knife casts the sliding bay
With his peach paints
Playing the Hand of God
Letting tissue paper fly
On the rigid poles of structure
The day stutters to a halt
Pausing the sinking hues of life
Paralyzed in his gilded cage
Rigid gold bars con fine
His power forms the fleet
Yet he is a fleet himself
BY MARSHALL GRAHAM
A frame of expectation intrudes
This liquid gold flows freely around him
It whispers in his ear what should be
It screams it’s fear of what shouldn’t
Something implores him to break free
To revolt from what is
“Fly free, child Build you mind”
Yet he remains in his sandbox
Afraid of the vacuum
Harbored
For there will always be Murmurings in his ear
Begging him to break free