High school artists hope to achieve a degree of notoriety in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery this month. For the second year in a row, art students from Bob Jones High School in Madison, Ala. have an exhibit that is showing until the end of January in Woods Hall.
Professors Craig Wedderspoon and Catherine Pagani accepted an invitation to Bob Jones’ annual art festival two years ago in May. After Wedderspoon and Pagani visited the festival, they decided to invite select students to feature their art at Alabama.
The gallery and exhibit are open to anyone throughout the day. UA students have been known to get inspiration from the show. The show tends to have a unifying effect between the younger artists and University artists.
“This is a lot like the art that I did in high school. It’s interesting how alike we think,” Sloan Saunders, a UA sculpture student, said as he looked at a piece done with cardboard, a type of metal and stain that made an impression on him.
Kelsey White, a freshman studio art major who knows some of the artists and their work, said the school’s art instructor, Robin Lakso, and art teacher Ms. Hughey, both taught her.
“They’ve really improved since I last saw their art work,” White said. White also said she appreciated the free spirit that she and her classmates at Bob Jones had.
“It was really hectic in there,” she said. “People went dumpster diving, and that’s why there are a lot of recycled materials. That gives the art the personality we all love. We didn’t have sufficient funds for paper all the time.”
The Bob Jones artists use cardboard, siding, coffee stains, acrylic, oil, watercolor, charcoal, colored pencil and paint on plexi glass.
“This exhibit is a wonderful opportunity for our students to get a taste of publicly showing their art work,” said Robin Lakso, the students’ teacher and instructor. “In past years, we have had a student or two attending U of A for art. This year we will send eight to 10, including one who plans on majoring in art history. Often, students do not even consider art history until they have experienced it in college.”
Friday, from 4 to 6 p.m., students from Bob Jones will have a reception in the gallery, which is in the first floor of Woods Hall, and the show will hang in the gallery until Jan. 25.
