The Marriotts Ridge Art Club and National Art Honors Society (NAHS) is hosting a huge fundraiser where they will be selling wooden apples to give the art club a chance to use a splash of their creativity to create fresh and funky designs.
This is the first fundraiser for the 2021-2022 school year the art club is dipping their toes into. This process will take some time since it will consist of members working on their pieces and designing something that best suits their interests and wants to make for the Marriotts Ridge community. The art club’s president, Annie Chong, has some bright and wonderful ideas as to what this fundraiser is going to be like.
“Our current project is to demonstrate the varied and unique approaches artists can take with the same base [apple]! The different depictions are gonna be displayed around the school as a form of art show. Then after a period of time, the tentative plan is to allow people to buy raffle tickets for a chance to win a specific apple design to take home. The primary purpose behind this project is to show off the creativity of our great members,” Chong said.
This fundraiser has caught the attention of many members and participating students are excited about getting right into the project and are overall enjoying what the art club has to offer.
“The atmosphere in the art club is always pretty nice, and the people there actually laugh at my C tier jokes, so I guess I just look forward to the social aspect of working on a project alongside other people who are doing something similar,” junior Mason Chialastri said.
The atmosphere along with making new friends are what makes the art club such a special place for many. Having a good environment contributes to executing ideas properly.
“The design I settled on was painting the life cycle of an orange on the apple. I know that seems kind of silly, but I thought the idea of connecting ‘apples and oranges’ would be pretty fun. Not to mention it’s an excuse to push myself out of my comfort zone by painting some plants, ” sophomore and activity organizer Sarah Otto said. Pushing artists out of their comfort zone means they will create something unique to them. especially considering the medium that they are working with – an apple.
“The art club closet had a lot of wooden apples going without use, so Mrs. Miers-Bond [the art club advisor] suggested we use them for an activity. So, we wanted to allow members to create their own spins! We took inspiration from public art projects like Washington D.C.’s “Party Animals” and the Florida Manatees,” Chong said.
After members have customized their apples with their own creative designs, they will have the opportunity to sell them to the Marriotts Ridge community. This is certainly a great experience for officers and art club members alike.
“This fundraiser will definitely be an exciting and engaging experience for both the featured artists and other students or teachers who may be interested in participating. Definitely worth checking out!” Otto said.
Overall, this fundraiser benefits students, teachers and members of the art club.
Due to the large number of participating painters, an abundance of creativity will be shared through everyone who wants to make a special difference in the school community. Acquiring skills throughout the process is also a must since all artists have a specific weakness in addition to their strengths. The hope is to make members feel more comfortable with conquering their weakness and build from there. This is very imperative because it could help artists with future tasks later on.
“I’m mostly a digital artist which means that I am not very good at working with physical paints or colors, so I’m probably hoping to learn to get better at doing traditional art. There’s a rhythm to things like clay or wood carving that I think would be cool to learn,” Chialastri said.
The main premise of all of this is to trust the process and enjoy oneself even if you don’t know how to do specific things. At the end of the day, it is about making the community stronger by binding it close with the nature of art.
The art club cannot wait to get this fundraiser on a roll and express their imagination with the rest of Marriotts Ridge community.