BY SYLVIE PEDERSON
Fast Forward
Mayor’s Show of Teen Art at Maude Kerns.
T
he annual Mayor’s Art Show also
includes “Fast Forward: The
Mayor’s Show of Teen Art,” a juried
exhibit on view at the Maude Kerns Art
Center through Oct. 8. This year, 37 young
artists (ages 13-18) from a dozen schools and
home schools in the greater Eugene area
were accepted into the show.
Not just a great opportunity for adoles-
cents to experience the professional side of
art, it is also an occasion for viewers to
glimpse the world of a varied group of ado-
lescents. Through their art-works and written
statements, these students express some of
their concerns, aspirations, views of them-
selves and the world. Above all, they tell
what art means to them, how they relate to
art, and what role it plays in their lives.
In an era of severe funding cuts in educa-
tion, such an exhibit is a reminder of what is
lost when programs from art to athletics that
previous generations enjoyed must be treated
as a luxury to be trimmed. These young
artists all concur about the value of art as a
means of self-expression — both an emo-
tional, creative outlet and a reflection of their
thoughts and feelings.
“When I work on my art,” Shawnna Marie
Clifton wrote, (18, Riverfront), “I try to think
of the most creative way to express my feel-
ings, whether I’m in a bad or good mood.”
Such self-expression is associated with an
experience of freedom for some teens. Ari
Werthamer (15, Sheldon) said art “is an activ-
ity where I can be myself and do anything I
want.” Shannon Sullivan (15, Crow) said,
“Art is the freedom of self-expression.”
However, self-expression means some-
thing different to each individual.
Self-expression may mean exploring an
interest in some aspect of the world around
them. Art becomes a way to study the natu-
ral world by making realistic renderings of
its fauna, flora and landforms. This process
requires keen observation.
Ansel Atkinson (13, Crow Middle)wrote,
“When I go out into the wilderness and shoot
some pictures with my Pentax K1000, it is a
way for me to experience nature and share its
wonders with other people.” Atkinson’s
black and white photography already evinces
a good eye and sense of composition.
Reflecting on the nature of art, he also wrote:
“I take my pictures in B&W for its effect.
The subject that I take the picture of is still
there, but at the same time the colorless sub-
ject is now something new.”
Many of the other photographers are
aware of the role of the artist in controlling
how reality is ultimately portrayed, and that
creativity is as necessary an ingredient for a
realistic piece to touch us as for an imagina-
tive one. With his macro-photography of
flowers and dripping water, Owen Garrity
(13, home school) focuses on what’s going
on in the moment.
Nature is also the subject in Amy Caves
(16, North Eugene) and Jessica King’s (16,
Crow) skillful studies of wild animals,
Shannon Sullivan’s (15, Crow) charcoal of
penguins, and Samantha Westrope’s (16,
Crow) watercolor landscapes. Jaimie
Lewellyn’s (14, Crow) watercolors of birds,
flowers and edible plants show a bright sense
of composition and color. Jesse Spivack (13,
Kennedy Middle) depicts her beloved fowls
in lovely woodcuts full of zest and humor as
well as great observation.
Others use the art of landscape and still-
life as a way of imaginatively reinterpreting
the natural world around them. Alisa Caves
turns natural elements such as trees, rocks
and sky into animals. And Lily Robertson
(15, South Eugene), who paints colorful still-
lifes wrote, “If I am painting a scene, and part
of it is too drab or dull, I like to change its
color to my own interpretation and create my
own beauty.”
A group of young artists from Gateways
Learning Center painted 6 matching vertical
panels in black, green, yellow and blue, col-
lectively creating a mysterious universe that
evokes at once the underworld of the deep
sea and the far reaches of outer space.
In his B&W landscape photography,
Wesley Curtis (16, North Eugene) experi-
ments with multiple exposures to create sur-
real effects. With their geometric perspective,
his roads in the sky emerge from clouds like
sunrays. Besides using multiple exposures,
Julie Warren (16, North Eugene) also manip-
ulates her pictures through the darkroom
process of solarization, of which Pebbles is
an excellent example.
Other artists choose to explore the human
realm. Liesel Sylwester’s (15, North Eugene)
watercolors imaginatively tell about the
world of childhood in excellent illustration
style. Mica Russo’s (13, Fern Ridge Middle)
Glam-Glam is a well-crafted, elegant shadow
box involving acrylic and collaged photo-
graphs.
Kevin Henry (16, North Eugene) and
Cassidy Langendoerfer (17, North Eugene)
make sensitive portraits of people in their
B&W photography, while Brendan Albano
(15, South Eugene) uses Photoshop to trans-
form a portrait into a bold digital design. Tilly
Anya Hamachek (14, The Village) tells us
about the world of “rocker chicks” through
fashion design. Martial arts inspired Eli
Werthamer’s (Sheldon) drawings and paint-
ings.
Some works are prompted by the world of
art itself. Such is Ren
Mary and
Rossini’s (17, South
Brandon
Eugene) Monet, in
Forever, self-
which the painter is
portrait by
represented by floral
Mary Redmon
magazine clippings.
(17, Riverfront)
Jessica Williams’(18,
Sheldon) Marilyn is
an acrylic version of
Andy
Warhol’s
famous silkscreens,
while her tiny but
expressive pen-and-
ink
Frankenstein
derives from litera-
ture and film.
The artist may
also take the concept
of self-expression lit-
erally to show how
she views herself. The
self-portrait becomes
an opportunity for
self-study, not so
much through appear-
ance but as a means to
define one’s identity.
About her color-
ful
mixed-media
assemblage, Laa-Laa-Land, Jaymi Lawrence
(16, Riverfront) said, “My sculpture repre-
sents my personality: full of color and the
things I love most. I think my personality is
colorful, bright, happy, and very shy.”
Mary Redmon (17, Riverfront) wrote,
“One of the things I am inspired most by, are
the woods and the living things who dwell in
them. Mary and Brandon Forever is one
example of my connection with nature. I
incorporated many different animals into my
self-portrait.”
Sometimes, the stakes for creating art
are high. Mara Thygeson, art teacher at the
alternative Looking-Glass Riverfront School
and Career Center, which serves at-risk
youth, prepared her students for the mayor’s
show. “So many of [the students] have the
deck stacked against them that it’s a miracle,
an amazing achievement, that they’re able to
create art and write so eloquently in their
statements,” Thygeson said. Many have
known severe economic stress, experienced
family trauma and dealt with uncertainty and
an absence of structure, she said.
Despite her sensitivity to the challenges of
some of her students face, Thygeson will no
longer have the opportunity to work with
them at the school. Her position at Riverfront
was cut last June due to lack of funding.
Riverfront Program Director Cheryl
Zwillinger emphasized the cathartic nature of
art for at-risk students. “Art is a way to
express their issues and traumas. They don’t
have any other way to do that.”
For instance, Christine Akin (18,
Riverfront) mourned the fact that she can no
longer attend art classes, which she loved,
because she’s already taken the required
number of electives. “Since I’ve stopped
taking art,” Akin said, “I’m in anger man-
agement class.”
Shawnna Marie Clifton (18, Riverfront),
author of the striking colored-pencil Good
Against Evil, also finds art therapeutic. “Most
of the time when I develop a picture it shows
how I want to feel rather than how I actually
feel. So if I’m depressed and down, I will cre-
ate something very cheerful.”
The process of self-examination can be
painful and the therapeutic result hard-won.
Brandon Gubred (16, Riverfront) had to sur-
mount frustration and self-doubt to achieve
his self-portrait. His parents were getting a
divorce, which he represented by an image of
them tearing apart.
Like many of their fellow-students, Greg
Hessel (17) and Matt Mercer (16), both of
Riverfront, created self-portraits that show
the pull of opposites, which leads to so much
anguish during adolescence.
Particularly vivid is Rachel Reininger’s
(16, Riverfront) Reflection, a colored-pencil
self-portrait. “This project really helped me
to express and understand myself,” she
wrote. Reininger had to overcome fear and
self-doubt, re-examine her struggle with
anorexia and depression, her feelings of
being judged by others and destructively
objectified by men.
Art is humanity’s common language.
Cutting across ages, classes and cultures, art
is of value to both individuals and society.
For teens as for adults, it is a way to experi-
ment, express ideas and emotions, seek and
find. Art is not a luxury but a necessity. ew
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30 OCTOBER 7, 2004