“Where Our Worlds Meet”: Ending the Taft ARC Journey of Creative Unity

Ms. Schorsch’s Drawing and Printmaking students are wrapping up their experience with the Taft Museum of Art’s Artists Reaching Classrooms (ARC) program, which immerses high school art students in Cincinnati’s visual arts community, connecting them with artistic practices, exhibitions, marketing strategies, and careers in the arts.

As part of ARC, students collaborated with their Artist-in-Residence, Adoria L. Maxberry, a Cincinnati-based visual and performance artist, educator, designer, and founder of Most OutGROWing LLC. Guided by a belief in the power of creativity for personal and collective growth, Adoria creates immersive experiences that blend education, reflection, and community. Her work spans murals, fiber arts, illustration, and mixed media, often embedding hidden phrases and personal stories. Throughout the students ARC experience, she guided students in creating a large-scale collaborative artwork for the upcoming exhibition at the Taft Museum of Art.

“Where Our Worlds Meet” is a whimsical celebration of the everyday worlds students move through: school activities, neighborhoods, digital spaces, shared hangouts, impactful life experiences, and quiet personal moments that bring joy. By incorporating favorite objects, symbols, and visual references from these familiar environments, the piece reflects how individual identities are shaped by daily experiences while remaining deeply connected to others. Each element carries personal meaning, but gains new significance when placed alongside the contributions of peers.

At the heart of this work is the question: How can we come together to creatively respond to the world around us? Through collaboration, students explored what it means to live together creatively: listening, adapting, and finding harmony within difference. The process emphasized connection over perfection, inviting playful experimentation and collective problem-solving as a way to build creative unity.

Aligned with ARC’s focus on collaboration and connection, this artwork represents both self and community. It honors individuality while highlighting shared experiences, showing that creativity thrives when voices overlap, ideas intertwine, and imagination becomes a common language. Together, these contributions form a joyful, unified response to the environments we all inhabit every day.

“Where Our Worlds Meet” will be on exhibition at the Taft Museum of Art from February 13th-16th, 2026. There will be an exhibition celebration on February 15th, from 1:00-2:30pm, with remarks at 1:30pm. Please join us in celebrating the creative vision of the Drawing and Printmaking students and Adoria Maxberry!

2026 OHHS Art and Design Overture Awards Nominees to Participate in Regional Competition

The Overture Awards is a program that recognizes, encourages, and rewards excellence in the arts among Greater Cincinnati students in grades 9-12. Its mission is to encourage arts education as an integral part of a student’s academic experience and to create an environment that encourages training in, and appreciation of, the arts. The Overture Awards Competition is the area’s largest solo arts competition and offers awards in six artistic disciplines: creative writing, dance, instrumental music, theater, visual art, and vocal music. For the 2026 competition, students may win $3,000 (one awarded in each discipline) or a $1,000 finalist award. Judges at all levels of the competition are drawn from the professional arts community.

Best of luck in the Regional Competition to OHHS Art and Design students Lydia Wilson (nominated by Ms. Schorsch) and Maggie Heydon (nominated by Mrs. Dignan-Cummins) participating in this year’s competition:

Lydia Wilson
Maggie Heydorn

Exploring ‘What a Revolutionary Must Know’ and the Biological Made Digital

On December 5th, AP Art and Design students embarked on their first field experience as a part of this year’s Contemporary Arts Center School Outreach Program. The CAC SOP offers students from grades 2 through 12 a comprehensive, immersive experience with contemporary art. Running from September through May, this year-long program includes an in-school orientation, guided tours of CAC exhibitions, a classroom project tied to the exhibition led by a local artist, and a spring visit to an artist’s studio. Program docents work with the same class throughout the year, fostering continuity and rapport with the students.

During the tour, students engaged with the Sheida Soleimani’s “What a Revolutionary Must Know” exhibition. Sheida Soleimani’s solo exhibition presents her complete “Ghostwriter” series, uniting photography, sculpture, and video to reconstruct her parents’ escape from Iran’s totalitarian regime through surreal, staged visual narratives that explore resistance, identity, memory, and political trauma, while also marking her first presentation of video work in a museum. An Iranian-American artist raised in Cincinnati, Soleimani examines interconnected histories of political violence across Iran, the United States, and the Middle East through multimedia, photo-based installations. Her work is held in major museum collections and widely covered in prominent publications. Based in Providence, she is an associate professor at Brandeis University and founder of Congress of the Birds, and she created a public artwork of 100 cast aluminum tulips honoring protesters killed after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a project that debuted at the 2023 Armory Show and continues to raise funds.

“Second Nature” showcases three digital animation works from the 21c Museum Hotels collection, featuring artists Jennifer Steinkamp and Chris Doyle, who use computer-generated imagery inspired by natural forms such as trees, vines, butterflies, and mushrooms to explore movement, pattern, and the fragile relationship between humans and the environment, with Steinkamp’s Dervish 3 depicting a tree shifting through the four seasons in a wind-like, whirling motion, and Doyle’s Circular Lament and Rondo using animated, nature-referencing shapes and bioluminescent mushrooms within symbolic, sacred-like forms to suggest ecological tension and the simulated presence of organic life through digital technology.

Students also had the unique opportunity to experience an artist talk from their teacher, Jamie Schorsch, an exhibiting artist in the “Journey to Healing” exhibition, where she shared how creating artwork has been a powerful tool in processing trauma and shaping her identity in adulthood. Through her personal story and visual work, students gained insight into how art can serve as a path to healing, self-expression, and resilience.

2025-2026 OHHS PTA Reflections Submissions!

The National PTA Reflections competition was developed as a way to encourage students to explore their talents and express themselves. The Reflections Program has inspired millions of students to reflect on a specific theme and create original artwork.  Each year, students in grades Pre-K through 12 are recognized for bringing the theme to life through film production, dance choreography, literature, music composition, photography, and visual arts. The 2025-2026 Reflections program theme is “I Belong”.

Best of luck to the following students from OHHS who submitted work for this year’s competition. Stay tuned for results!

Photography Entries
Alejandra Lui
Charlotte Nuss
Asriel Sanchez

Visual Arts Entries
Hope Casey
Valeria Barrios Espinoza
Liliana Pisegna

2025 Thomas More University Juried High School Exhibition

The 2025 Thomas More University Juried High School Exhibition participants have been announced! Congratulations to the following OHHS Art and Design students whose work was selected for the exhibition:

Instructor: Jamie Schorsch

Maria Arrivillaga Munoz
Josie Auciello
Miles Frisch
Alejandra Lui
Baylee Moorman
Sophia Wehman
Lydia Wilson

Works will be on display in the Eva G. Farris Gallery from November 10th-December 4th, 2025. The Opening Reception will take place on November 10th from 4-7 pm with a Scholarship Awards Presentation at 6 pm. The Eva G. Farris Art Gallery is located on the entrance level of the Benedictine Library.