ABOVE: Makenna Anderson and Aaron Graplar sketch a landscape in an art class on Wednesday at Fairmont High School. A collection of student art is on display at the Red Rock Center for the Arts this month.

FAIRMONT– The Red Rock Center for the Arts in Fairmont is exhibiting its annual student art showcase. This year’s exhibit features 47 pieces from students at Fairmont, Granada-Huntley-East Chain, Truman, North Union and Blue Earth Area schools.

This year’s showcase is significantly larger than other exhibits displayed in recent years; the COVID-19 pandemic led to decreased participation in high school art programs and less pieces to display. The art on display covers a wide variety of mediums including but not limited to acrylics, stained glass, ceramics and digital art. Submissions include art that students have worked on in school or independently.

Kandice Petschke is an art teacher at Fairmont High School who’s taught students whose work is on display.

“It’s fun to see them as little 7th grade kids who mature into 9th graders … and then go to the senior level. It’s a lot of fun for me to see the progression of their skill and their confidence,” said Petschke.

Katelynn Sommer is a senior whose favorite mediums are acrylic and oil paints. She has a clay wood duck and two portraits of her parakeets on display in the exhibit.

“I’m very interested in birds and I plan to pursue a career in birds so all of my pieces are bird related,” said Sommer.

Sommer said she tries to accurately reflect the details of her subjects but does some amount of stylization.

“I think with my art I try to go realistically but there’s a little bit of a cartoonish to it. You can definitely tell it’s my art style and not some generic textbook-style art,” said Sommer.

While she has mixed feelings about some of her pieces, she said creating flawed works was part of the creative process.

“I’ve learned that you’re not going to like every art project you’ll do; it’s like a love hate relationship,” said Sommer.

Alex Ogden is a junior who has an oil painting and a pen and ink illustration on display. After graduating Ogden is considering becoming an art teacher. In addition to work created in the classroom, Ogden submitted a piece that was influenced by her parents’ work.

“My dad is really interested in freehand doodles so I took a piece that he made and made it my own. I got oil pastels for my birthday from my mom and I pretty much went crazy with them and tried to use them to the best of my ability,” said Ogden.

One art form Ogden was pleasantly surprised by was pointillism; the practice of making a series of small dots that form into a larger image.

“When we did pointillism I realized I really like it which is odd for me because I’m an extremely impatient person and pointillism takes so long,” said Ogden.

Aaron Graplar digitally created an image of a flag with a geometric triangle pattern specifically for the exhibit. He said one of his favorite things about making art is the satisfaction of viewing a finished product.

“I can see all the progress I make day to day and all the alterations I made throughout. You get to see the bigger picture when it’s all put together,” said Graplar.

The show will be displayed until April 27. On the final day of the exhibit, all the student artists whose work is on display will come together and create large sculptures of art supplies which will be displayed at the Red Rock Center temporarily.