The Department of Fine and Performing Arts presents: The Carle Place Winter Art Show
March 1, 2023
The Department of Fine and Performing Arts presents: The Carle Place Winter Art Show
Hudson Hsieh
The 2023 Winter High school Art Show, hosted by the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, saw the culmination of the work and effort that was put in by art students in the first semester of the 2022-2023 school year. The event took place from the first to the second of February in the Barry Denis room, from 6:30-8:30 P.M on the 1st.
The pieces in the Art Show were produced by high school art students that were enrolled in art classes in the first semester that are offered by Carle Place High School. The artists from each of the classes pick two pieces from their first-semester collection to submit to the Art Show. As a result of the wide array of art classes that were involved in the show, the Art Show contained a variety of different forms of art from mixed media, photography, painting, 3-D art, and drawings.
The Art Show demonstrated the creative abilities of the students in Carle Place, from the assortment of ceramic sculptures to the varieties of paintings. Furthermore, the variety of painted or drawn subjects suggests that the artists drew inspiration from various sources such as popular media, trending ideas, or school events. There were photographs taken by the photography class of the various areas in and around the school – Trash cans were used as canvases for breathtaking works of art – Realistic sketches of apples and icecreams. The depth and breadth of the art that was on display parallels that of a professional gallery. In describing his reaction to the Art Show Mr. Limone, the Chairperson of the Fine and Performing Arts Department, stated that “I was so proud, and seeing how proud the kids were of their pieces was worth all the hard work.”
Expressing the hard work and creativity of the students was the goal of the Art Show for teacher Mr. Krause, “For me, it’s a way to display all the artwork that the highschoolers had created and it’s also a way to show the middle school students what to look forward to. It’s also a way for the rest of the district to see students’ work in art classes. This sentiment is echoed by Mr. Limone, the chairperson of the fine and performing arts department, “I want students to have an opportunity to share what they have made. It helps to show people what students in art classes do and it also helps to generate interest in the Art programs. Me, I love the part where the artist gets to make decisions about which piece they pick to put in. It is a level of evaluation that’s almost as important to me as doing the work.”
The winter Art Show also marks the introduction of the first mid-year Art Show. In the years past, there has been traditionally only one Art Show that was held at the end of the year. This year the art department decided to add the mid-year Art Show as a way to showcase more artwork and to generate interest before course selection. As Mr. Limone put it, “When I came here five years ago, there was only one spring Art Show a year and it was mostly an end-of-the-year Art Show. We used to have it in the multipurpose room and then we had a big plan to expand it, but then the following year was the covid year. As a result, there was no Art Show in 2020, a virtual Art Show in 2021, and in 2022 there was an end of year Art Show in the boy’s gym. What happened was Mr.Krause and I were sitting in the gym as his 8th-grade class toured the gym. We both saw what was happening, and thought: ‘We should be doing this in February as a way to generate interest for the high school art class before course selection.”
As for the Spring Art Show, the art department plans to expand and improve upon the Winter Art Show. As Mr. Krause puts it, “People can expect more and better art. The first Art Show showed the students what they were capable of, and the spring Art Show will motivate them to create better art.” For Mr. Limone, the Spring Art Show will include several new features, “We are talking about making some adjustments and making it bigger. The next Art Show will take place the night of the concert, so we’ll try to get live music. We thought that, for the next Art Show, the art classes would come back afterward so they could evaluate the pieces they saw. This adds an interactive element and museum curation to the Art Show that I believe will be beneficial.”