Alison Benda, Marin Hart, Griffin Culbeck, Matilda Rogers, Aubrey Cook, Willow Oakley, front: Uriel Bravo and Giselle Miller gather at Pike’s Place Market during their trip.
Seven Haines High School students brought back different impressions from a week-long art trip to Seattle.
Sophomore Griffin Culbeck said highlights for him included meeting a 25-year “street artist” who provided a tour of murals and art sites in Pioneer Square and the International District. Culbeck also was impressed with the sheer volume of art around town. “Wherever there’s a blank canvas of some sort, someone’s going to put something up.”
Some of the art “wasn’t necessarily legal,” Culbeck said, and other pieces arose from social strife. In Pioneer Square, businesses that boarded up during riots also paid artists to paint the plywood over their storefronts.
Junior Alison Benda said she found interest in the diversity of cultures represented in art they saw, particularly Egyptian and Roman creations at the Seattle Art Museum. “I see a lot of Alaska Native art here, but not art from the rest of the world as much. I’ve always loved art so it was nice to go see so much of it.”
Benda also said she was appreciative of the “amazing opportunity” to visit post-secondary schools including University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts, Northwest College of Art and Design and University of Alaska-Southeast.
Other trip destinations included the Olympic Sculpture Park near downtown and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. Noted artworks students visited included Dale Chihuly’s “Crystal Towers” and “The Eagle,” a 40-foot abstract sculpture by Alexander Calder.
Although Benda said she has been checking out schools online, the trip was her first to a college campus. “It’s different to go in person and get the feel of the colleges and talking to college students there was helpful.”
Benda is considering a career in teaching and wants to be able to incorporate art in what she teaches.
For Junior Matilda Rogers, a highlight was seeing the studios of college-level artists and an art show at Cornish where seniors are given a blank room and given a free hand to create the art of their choice there as their graduation project.
“We talked to people who work in (art) schools and we talked to people about going into the arts and if that was crazy and unachievable,” Rogers said.
Senior Aubrey Cook said the most rewarding part of the Seattle trip for her was the preparation – a year of fund-raisers by the art club to pay for it. Students sold ceramics at a holiday bazaar and through the year also made and sold valentines, screen-printed T-shirts, pinch pots and notebooks.
“I don’t think any school group has sold art at a Christmas bazaar before. That was what was cool to me. We all put in the work, and it paid off in the end,” Cook said.
Art teacher Giselle Miller said that besides exposing students to different kinds of art, including contemporary art, she hoped the trip would help students imagine how to incorporate art into their lives even if they pursue other fields of study.
For example, UAS doesn’t offer an art major, but it does offer a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and an impressive summer ceramics program that includes outdoor kilns. “Even if they don’t study art, I want students to see how art can be part of the college experience… Creativity is important and it’s valued in the business world.”
Miller said the discipline of art wasn’t valued when she went to school and she wants students to appreciate it and to “legitimize” art as a career choice or path of future study.
Spending time on college campuses is important to high school students, particularly ones from Haines who often choose a school without visiting it, Miller said. “Just being on campus, seeing the dorms and classrooms, when you visit there, you can start to visualize yourself there.”
Miller said she’s hoping to continue to make similar trips in coming years.
Students making the April 6-12 trip included Marin Hart, Uriel Bravo and Willow Oakley.