All Oak Hills High School students electing to enroll in an Art and Design Department course will develop a Competitive Advantage, Appreciation of the Arts, Creative Thinking and Problem Solving Skills, Interdisciplinary Connections, Social and Global Awareness, and Career Preparation related to Visual Communication.
The Memory Project portraits that the OHHS National Art Honor Society students created earlier this fall were successfully delivered to the children and teens from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has faced many economic challenges over the past decades. Lack of adequate funding has forced many schools to close, and the percentage of elementary students who qualify for free and reduced lunch is around 90%. Those challenges were already present on the island before Hurricanes Irma and Maria unleashed total destruction in September 2017.
The people at The Memory Project wanted us to know that the children absolutely loved their portraits! The following video of the delivery begins with an introduction to our OHHS NAHS students and their work and then shows the children receiving their portraits together at all the different locations that were involved.
“Celebrating Art” is devoted to the promotion and appreciation of student art. The intent of their student art contest is to motivate student artists. The top entries are published in an anthology that will record the creative works of today’s student artists.
Students recently submitted work and 45 OHHS Art and Design were invited to be published in the Fall 2018 “Celebrating Art”! Only the best art is selected to be included in the full-color hardbound art book, “Celebrating Art”. Additionally, final judging for “Top Ten Artist” and “High Merit Artist” awards will be completed and announced soon. The following students should feel honored. This is not a contest where every entry is invited to be published and is a highly selective competition. Thousands of entries were not invited to be published. Being published represents a lot of talent, hard work, and dedication from students.
Congratulations to the following students:
From Dignan-Cummins’ Sculpture; Fiber Arts; Ceramics; and Enamels, Mosaics and Glass classes:
The OHHS Drawing and Printmaking students are exhibiting this year’s Memory Project portraits at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts. The Memory Project exhibition showcases portraits created for the Rohingya refugee children before they are sent off for delivery by the organization. Compilation images of past portraits will be showcased as well to illustrate the OHHS students’ global impact through the works they’ve created as a part of The Memory Project, and hopefully inspire involvement from many more young artists.
The Memory Project is a charitable nonprofit organization that invites art teachers and their students to create and donate portraits to youth around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as neglect, abuse, loss of parents, violence, and extreme poverty. Given that youth in such situations usually have few personal keepsakes, the purpose of the portraits is to provide them with meaningful mementos of their youth. The project also allows art students to practice kindness and global awareness while enhancing their portraiture skills.
Over the past three years, Drawing and Printmaking and NAHS students have created
over 140 portraits for children in Madagascar, the Philippines, and Syrian refugees in Jordan. This year the NAHS students are creating 12 portraits for children in Puerto Rico and Columbia and Drawing and Printmaking students are creating 50 portraits
for children in Rohingya.
Some of the Drawing and Printmaking, and NAHS, students recently had the opportunity to visit their exhibition today at The Fitton Center for Creative Arts. Students reflected on their experience with creating this year’s Memory Project portraits which will be mailed out for delivery in January. “Portraits of Kindness” will be on exhibit throughout the month of December.
The exhibition can be viewed in the 1st floor Community Gallery from December 4th through the 31st.
Studio Art AP students from Groh and Schorsch’s classes were visited by some “Winged Wonders” as a part of the “Art in Root” program they are participating in this year. “Art in Root” is a three-step program designed to create connections between high school students and nature through art. This program features a combination of a field trip to a park, an in-class visit and an art exhibition to immerse students in nature and translate their experiences into fine art. This year, artists are working with the theme of “Winged Wonders” and will create artwork based on things with wings (birds, bats, insects, butterflies, etc.) that will be exhibited later this school year.
In early November, the students participated in the first portion of the program with a nature hike at Miami Whitewater Forest. For the second portion of the program, our Interpreter of Nature, Will, brought in artifacts from winged animals as well as some live animals. The students were able to learn more about the winged creatures that inhabit our parks while visiting with, and photographing, Curly the Black Vulture and Ozzy the Screech Owl. These 2D Design, Drawing, and 2D Design Photography students will now be creating artwork inspired by these experiences for an exhibition in the spring which is the culminating experience of the “Art in Root” program designed by the Great Parks of Hamilton County.
December 1st marks the annual observance of World AIDS Day, one of the most recognized international days and a key opportunity to raise awareness in communities across the world about the state of the pandemic, and critical next steps that must be taken to halt its spread. This year, 2018, marks the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day.
Day Without Art (DWA) began on December 1st 1989 as a national day of action and mourning, aligned with World AIDS Day, in response to the AIDS epidemic. Over 800 U.S. art and AIDS groups participated in the first Day Without Art by shutting down museums, sending staff to volunteer at AIDS services, or sponsoring special exhibitions of work about AIDS. Over the years, Day Without Art has grown into a collaborative project in which an estimated 8,000 national and international museums, galleries, art centers, AIDS service organizations, libraries, high schools and colleges take part. Oak Hills High School has been a part of this tradition for over 22 years.
In 1997, Day Without Art switched the approach to a Day WITH Art, in order to recognize and promote increased programming of cultural events that draw attention to the continuing pandemic. The name was retained as a reminder of the impact the disease had on the arts and entertainment communities, but parentheses were added to the program title. Day With(out) Art highlights art projects intended to inspire communities to action by creating art and awareness about AIDS.
The artist’s role as social commentator and activist has been engrained in the history of civilization and culture. Art and its creation as a response to social and political issues can be a powerful catalyst for influencing and raising public awareness resulting in positive social change. Art has a long history of using social commentary as a weapon of change or enlightenment. German Expressionist artist Kathe Kollwitz created artworks that centered on themes of poverty, unemployment and worker exploitation during WWI and WWII. Mexican muralist Diego Rivera used his art as a tool to vocalize for the oppressed against their oppressors. In April 1937, the world learned the shocking truth about the Nazi Luftwaffe’s bombing of Guernica, Spain- a civilian target- through Pablo Picasso’s great anti-war painting, Guernica. American Pop artist Keith Haring created public works to raise awareness about issues of drug abuse, corruption in government and societies- such as the Berlin Wall in Germany and South Africa under apartheid. These artists expressed their opinions and message to the literate and illiterate alike and earned worldwide recognition.
To mark the anniversary of this event, the Art and Design Department at Oak Hills High School focuses on the positive and influential role the arts play in AIDS activism- as well as in other social, global and political issues. Artwork will remain uncovered as a way to draw attention to the possible future roles our current art students may play in our globalized future.
Throughout the week, over 300 Art Foundations students created a collaborative mural that focused on empowerment, and activism, through the arts inspired by the style of artist Keith Haring as a part of the observance of World AIDS Day. Students also created individual designs throughout the week, centered on Global Issues, that will be displayed alongside their collaborative creation.
OHHS Art and Design 