Talented sophomore Emma Henry’s artistic creations have been showcased at KO in many different forms, but Emma has been developing her knack and love for visual arts since a young age. From the first to the sixth grade, Emma took classes at the Connecticut School of Art. Emma said that she really enjoyed the creative process of art that the school provided. “We would do pretty unique projects, like we felted tropical fish. Another time we did 3-D paintings of monsters we [made],” she said. “I learned that art isn’t just traditional paintings.”
Emma said when she came to KO, she really liked it because of the numerous art electives that the school offered to Middle and Upper Schoolers, especially sculpture. Some of Emma’s sculptures include a basketball with wings, which she said combined her love for basketball and sculpture. Another memorable piece that she made in eighth grade was a clay bust of Dobby from the Harry Potter storyline.
Emma said that she really appreciates how the different mediums of art are separated at KO, so students can focus on specific skills. She also said that she likes how teachers are willing to mix different mediums to express a specific project that students have in mind. “They did a good job in teaching me the art forms and teaching me that there is more than one way to accomplish a project,” she said.
Last year, Emma took sculpture with creative arts teacher Scott McDonald and this year she took drawing with creative arts teacher Katherine Burnett. Mr. McDonald and Ms. Burnett both described Emma as extremely inventive and talented technically. Mr. McDonald said that Emma made incredible sculptures in his sculpture class last year that were interesting and meaningful. “I think she’s really good at coming up with creative ways to communicate her ideas in art,” he said.
Ms. Burnett said that in her drawing class, Emma was always enthusiastic, eager, and happy to take on the next project. “[Emma]’s also really supportive of every other artist in the class,” she said.
Mr. McDonald furthermore commented on Emma’s sculpture of a flying basketball. He said that the project was called “object transformation,” and Emma used a basketball for her project, and made the feathers of the wings out of the basketball itself by cutting out pieces of it.
Another sculpture she made was for a project about inequality; the sculpture addressed the issue of people without money not having a voice, partially about people buying other people’s silence. The sculpture she made was named “Hush Money”; she cast a classmate’s face and made two faces that represented two different people. One person had their finger in front of their mouth, as in a “be quiet or hush” manner; and the other person had a dollar bill over their mouth.
“I think we are excited working with her.” Mr. McDonald said. “She’s a sophomore, so she is just getting started in our program. She’s on course to become one of our advanced art students.”
Emma said that she’s not thinking about majoring in art in college but definitely wants to continue taking art courses, specifically drawing.
