Alex Garner is a senior in his third year of art classes at Archie Williams. His passion for drawing began in kindergarten, but he began to pursue art more seriously in middle school. In high school, he took photography and AP Drawing and Painting to further his skills. This past summer, Alex traveled to New York to participate in a month-long program at Pratt Institute, where he took a course in drawing and painting, taught by world-renowned professors, advancing his art to the next level. His expressive style conveys deeper messages, covering themes such as identity and self-expression. Alex is an identical twin, but his brother passed away shortly after birth. He created this piece, titled “Vicarious,” to represent his brother living vicariously through himself and express the bond he feels.

What were your inspirations behind this piece?

“This was actually a revision of my final from Pratt. The one I did at Pratt was much larger, and it had a lot more symbolism in the background. It kind of told you what you were supposed to see. And with this one, I wanted to leave it more to the interpretation of the audience, just leave it simple. The flowers have some meaning, but mainly I just wanted to leave it to what people want to take from it,” Alex said.

Beck Weldon is a senior in his third year of ceramics classes at Archie Williams. He is the son of an artist, and the majority of his siblings make art, which strongly influenced him and exposed him to the art community at a young age. As a sophomore, Beck decided to take ceramics to follow in his family’s footsteps and fell in love with the art form. Since then, he has been developing his expressive and textural style. Beck’s pieces often feature dramatic texture and bold shapes to create an organic sculpted surface.

What were your inspirations behind this piece?

“Behind this piece, the inspiration was the story of my dad, the time he spent in New Mexico growing up, and how it influenced his work. That caused him to create a lot of stone-like figures in his paintings. I just wanted to make a piece inspired by that,” Beck said.

Miya Hermans is a senior taking her third art course at Archie Williams. She’s been doing art since she was young, and then began to take it seriously in high school. Miya enjoys drawing with charcoal pencils, but decided to take ceramics her junior year. She has now progressed to AP Ceramics in her senior year. As a ceramicist, she creates colorful and technical pieces on the wheel, showing her talents in various forms and structures.

What makes this piece special to you?

“Last year, since it was my first year, I felt like I was a little behind everyone else, and I was making smaller pieces; [it] didn’t really matter how small it was, but, my goal was to make bigger pieces. This piece was the first time this year that I made a bigger planter pot for my family, which I thought was pretty special. It’s a set, so I made more than one, which was even cooler,” Miya said.

Liat Holden is a senior who is enrolled in her fourth art class at Archie Williams. She has memories of making art in her garage with her father, dating her passions back to childhood. In high school, she took ceramics for the first three years, taking the honors course sophomore year and the AP junior year. She is currently taking AP Drawing and Painting to explore other art forms and nurture her love for doodling. Liat incorporates underlying messages into her art to give her work real meaning and purpose, and she often focuses on global issues, offering an activist angle to her pieces.

What makes this piece special to you?

“My inspiration was exploring the tension and coexistence between the natural world and the consumer-driven artificial world through bold colors and mixed media. My work reflects how modern society can prioritize artificial beauty and consumption over nature. In my work, I used mixed media and collage to blend these opposing forces with some juxtaposition. I want people to question how consumerism distorts our views of the natural world, and to prompt a deeper response of reflection,” Liat said.