Throughout high school, Star Hernandez never considered herself an artist. The Glenwood Springs High School senior mostly stuck to traditional academic classes. Until last fall.
“I took AP Art kind of just to experiment a little bit,” she said.
She started with digital photography. A trip to Mexico City inspired her to create a series of images focused on the kids she saw selling candy on the streets.
Hernandez’s images were on display at the annual Glenwood Springs High School Art Show earlier this week, where judges gave out awards for craftsmanship and creativity across all 11 of the school’s art class offerings, including drawing, photography, pottery and mixed media.
Her photo, Ojitos Mentirosos, Spanish for “Lying Eyes,” shows her nephew, his face painted, with a fake cigarette in his mouth.
It’s a deliberately provocative image, said Hernandez. She wanted to convey the idea of a kid growing up too fast, leaving them in a kind of limbo.
“You're forced to be an adult, but you're not actually one,” she said.
Her photo was awarded a ribbon for technical skill.
For Sunny McClean, an art teacher at Glenwood Springs High School, the art show is both a celebration of creativity and a way to help kids reflect on the process behind creating something — to ask what worked and what didn’t work, and practice the perseverance it requires to not give up.
Those lessons are ones that apply inside and outside the classroom, said McLane.
“The most important thing I find about teaching art is that it really coincides with life,” she said.
