Taking Art

Beyond The Lab,

From Newtown To Brooklyn And Beyond

Story And Photo By Shannon Hicks

 

Katie Miller took her first art class during her sophomore year of high school and it’s been a fast-forward brush with the artistic world ever since.

The Newtown High School senior is about as immersed in the world of art as a person of her age can be, and she is very much looking forward to finding out what the future holds. The immediate future includes a second group show at the Danbury gallery Thirteen, and then in September Katie will leave Newtown and start attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

“I took my first art class sophomore year and that was it,” Katie said recently. “I like it.”

Not only does she enjoy art, but the 17-year old also has a talent that Aldrich Museum curator Nina Carlson says can “definitely” provide a career in the field. Katie met Ms Carlson about two years ago, when she began taking part in Art Lab, an intensive program at the Ridgefield museum for juniors and seniors in high school who intend to pursue a career in the visual arts.

“I know she is interested in her art education program at Pratt, and obviously she is going to continue exploring fine arts there as well,” Ms Carlson said. “She’s also considering industrial design.

“Katie is a great communicator, and she’s got tons of energy,” she continued. “I think she could get any class of kids going and they could do fabulous things together. Even in Art Lab, she stands out as a leader for the rest of the class.”

Katie participated in last year’s inaugural Art Lab exhibition.

“She really stood out from the rest of the class in the way she went about making her piece for that exhibition,” said Nina Carlson. “She used the scientific approach in deciding how to present her answer to the theme, and I think that was the way the problem needed to be solved.”

The Art Lab student-artists decided to explore each participant’s interpretation of the word home. Katie built a shelf fixture on which 12 handmade clay pots were placed. In each pot was an oil-based scent, with each scent representing a different family member.

“She tested a number of ideas and did a million different experiments before she finished that piece,” Ms Carlson added. “It took a lot of maturity to do that, rather than just settling for the first solution she came up with.

“Katie really approaches much of her art conceptually,” continued Ms Carlson. “That’s not to say her execution isn’t also good, but she puts so much into her conception of a work or art, and not all teenagers will do that.”

One of the goals of Art Lab is to fill in the holes left open by most high school art curriculums, including life experiences with curators and working artists. That last point is accomplished through field trips to artists’ studios and to galleries in New York City.

Through Art Lab, Katie was able to see the controversial “Sensations” exhibition at Brooklyn Museum of Art and has been to Zoar’s, a clothing store in Brooklyn whose owner creates her own patterns and clothing designs, among other outings that might not have been available to her had she explored outside the parameters of Newtown High School. It was while on a visit to the studio of artist Allan Wexler, another Art Lab outing, that Katie had her first hands-on encounter with industrial design.

Art Lab, which is open to all high school students in Fairfield County, has its students work with the museum on a long-term basis, learning first-hand the workings of a major museum. Participants meet every member of the Aldrich staff and learn about the responsibilities of each position.

There are days when they work directly with artists, and even days when they help hang a show. Such interaction with all points of the art world is exactly what a thriving young mind like Katie’s enjoys from sunrise to dusk.

It was during the second semester of Art Lab, last spring, that students began working on their own show. The students were responsible for every aspect of the exhibition, from the theme, invitations, and press releases, to creating the work, and of course mounting the exhibition. The show, simply entitled “Home,” was then presented at Thirteen.

“I didn’t realize how much goes into every art show,” Katie said recently. “The framing, painting the gallery’s walls, the invites… And you learn a lot when you are working with other people, because everyone is passionate about their idea.”

Katie has continued with Art Lab since the program’s inception, even though the program was meant to be a one-semester event. She and Jessie McGlasson, Ben Jura, and Marlene Pixley, all of whom are NHS students, have stayed with Art Lab for four straight semesters. The program will offer its second annual exhibition at Thirteen later this year, with an opening scheduled as of this week for June 1.

Her Own Curriculum

In addition to her internships and participation at the Aldrich, Katie has organized her entire academic life around her studies of art.

Last summer Katie attended The Center for Creative Youth (CCY), a pre-college summer program at Wesleyan University. CCY offers artistically advanced high school students five weeks of intensive study at one of the country’s most distinguished liberal arts colleges. And it isn’t an easy outing.

“CCY was like a boot camp for art,” laughed Katie. “We had so much homework we were pulling all-nighters.”

Students participate daily in intensive art form and interdisciplinary art classes, culminating in exhibitions. At the end of the summer session, students leave with a complete evaluation of their work and efforts for inclusion in their college recommendations, not to mention an additional portfolio’s worth of work.

This school year she is a student at Newtown High School and also at Area Cooperative Educational Services’ (ACES) Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) in New Haven. ECA was formed in 1972 to meet the needs of visual, literary, and performing arts high school students from districts within the greater New Haven area.

ECA students attend their local high school in the morning for academic studies, and then travel to the New Haven-based magnet school for college level arts training Monday through Thursday from 1 to 4 pm.

To get into ECA, Katie submitted an application and then had a portfolio review. Arts courses are offered each quarter; she has completed “Figure Drawing” and “Print Making,” is in the middle of “Photography,” and will finish her senior year with “Personal Vision through Art.” She has also taken “West African Drumming and Dancing,” an elective course, and is also currently taking “Pottery Sculpture II.”

Classes at ECA are kept small, which is one of the benefits of the school. During the photography class, for instance, students are given their own camera, tripod, and enlarger to work with.

“Most schools, you have six or seven kids sharing every piece of equipment,” Katie pointed out. “This way we are able to focus on what we’re leaning, and not wait to begin studying or working.”

One of the biggest advantages of attending ECA is that it has allowed Katie to expand her areas of interest. When she first started to find an interest in art, she focused her time on pottery and sculpture.

“Now,” she says, “I’m doing whatever they let us do.” In addition to the aforementioned senior year art classes, Katie’s previous classes have included “2-D Art,” “3-D Art,” “Pottery Sculpture,” and “Humanities.” The last course is a combination art and English class, in which students combine the two subjects and receive an English credit.

Pratt Institute is the next big step for Katie, and it was a surprise choice.

“I was having a terrible time finding a school I liked, but my parents and I heard about an open house at Pratt,” she begins. “I even went into this thing with a negative attitude,” she laughs, “because I did not want to be going into the city at first.” Needless to say, Katie — who draws 60 to 90 minutes every night — was swept off her feet.

“These kids are serious. They want to learn and they want a career in art,” she said. One portfolio presentation and interview later, and Katie is off to begin studies on the 25-acre campus of Pratt Institute in a few months.

Pratt has 13 undergraduate programs in its School of Art and Design, and another 14 graduate offerings. The school boasts one of the most comprehensive professional art and design programs available, which means Katie made a smart choice for her continuing education.

The best thing about Katie Miller’s life right now is she is so focused on what makes her happy. There is a hope that all of the effort she is putting forth now will continue into a lifelong pattern.

“I’ve always liked to draw, but I guess I never realized there was a career in art,” she recently admitted. “You can take classes in this stuff, and there are scholarships for art students. This is all relatively new.”

What is not new is a realization many adults discover too late in life.

“I can make a living doing what I love,” the high school senior says hopefully. “It’s a lot easier to get up in the morning when you are passionate about your life’s work.”