R.F. Staples is an artistic school, complete with a vibrant music scene and talented actors and actresses.
But what must not be forgotten are all the students whose artistic talents reside in the visual realm.
Last Thursday, those students were given their due when the school held its annual Senior High Art Show and Sale.
Held in the cafeteria May 15, the show and sale was a chance for students in grades 10-12 to show off, as well as try to sell, what they had produced this school year.
Although all the students’ work was on display, one artist’s pieces occupied a single corner all to themselves.
Valerie McMillan has been drawing for six years, but didn’t start focusing on her craft until three years ago when she entered high school.
On display were various paintings, ink drawings and a pointillist question mark, each of which had its own story behind it.
“I’m not really inspired by other artists,” McMillan said. “It crawls from the depths of my subconscious and onto the page.”
Of the pieces on display, three of them effectively came together to tell one story — that of finding your own way in life, accepting who you are and being yourself.
Those pieces were Vanity, which dealt with striving to achieve your ideal; Pressure, which was about the outside societal pressures people feel; and Washing It All Away, which touched on the idea of makeup as masking your true self.
With graduation only a few short weeks away, she’s already set on her post-secondary plans, having been accepted to the Alberta College of Art and Design in the fall.
McMillan’s first year at ACAD will consist of a series of mandatory classes in drawing, paint, ceramics, jewelry and 3-D fabric. By the end of her time there, she will have earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. After that, she’s aiming to earn a master’s degree.
In order to get her art out there, she said she’s in the process of posting what she’s made on Facebook, but she has bigger dreams.
“I eventually hope to establish my own studio,” McMillan said. “And maybe teach some small classes out of my studio.”
In the meantime, she said she is taking commissioned art requests. Anyone interested in either a commissioned piece or other original art is invited to e-mail her at [email protected].
Outside of McMillan’s display, the works being shown included Group of Seven recreations, action hero portraits, comic book covers, Warhol-esque pop-art pieces, and dual-media dragons.
The dual-media dragons were drawings of dragons, which the students then had to sculpt out of clay.
Visitors to the show were also taken on a tour of the art installations already in place around the school, including the rainbow and seasons mural just past the office inside the main doors, the sci-fi collage in the ELA hallway and a painting of a yellow Super Bee car inside the vocational wing.
