Just walking up the stairs can be an art-filled journey at South, thanks to multiple student-painted murals decorating the inside of South walls. But, what about the outside world? Due to recent competitions, students in art classes here at South have gotten the opportunity to show their art in galleries and competitions outside of South.

One of these competitions is the Viva City Fine Arts Festival, where students art gets nominated by their teachers and is then judged. The art is then put into a exhibition which was on display January 6th through March 4th. Sophomore Cora Dean-Wyatt has been nominated two years in row for sculpture. This year’s submission was a curvy vase with a fading color design of blue at the bottom and white at the top. “[The experience] was pretty cool,” she said.

Senior Mia Dusak’s bust sculpture of the “Fantastic Mr.Fox” character also made it into the competition. Unfortunately, she did not get the experience of seeing her art shown to the world because she forgot about it. “I saw the sheet on the fridge and I was like ‘Oh my god, I missed all the dates,”she explained. “I kind of regret that.”

Dusak had done small school ceramics before high school, but it was “Nothing fancy, you know, a simple pinch pot,” she explained. Dean-Wyatt explored ceramics a little more by signing up for out of school ceramics classes, but even then it was hard to stay with ceramics. “I didn’t really have access to clay unless I took a class and I kind of forgot about ceramics for a while,” she said.

Dean-Wyatt and Dusak began taking ceramics classes in school last year, and really enjoyed it. “[Ceramics] calms me down and is a thing that I can do…help me de-stress,” said Dean-Wyatt. “It’s kind of peaceful,” Dusak agreed. “If you’re drawing a pot you have to do all this shading and stuff and it might not look right but if you’re making a pot it’s a lot easier because you get to form it yourself with your hands.”

A lot of how much you enjoy a class can also come from who is teaching it. Denny Sponsler, a ceramics teacher who taught at South for many years and retired after last year was a popular choice “I think that best teacher I’ve ever had in my entire life was Mr.Sponsler,” said Dean-Wyatt. “I just liked his style…he would come over and help you for as long as you needed help.”

Dusak agreed and also mentioned Charles Johnson-Nixon, the visual arts teacher who has since become an administrator at Robbinsdale-Cooper high school. After completing Johnson-Nixon’s drawing and painting classes he encouraged her to try Sponsler’s ceramics class. Dusak said she enjoyed them both because “[Johnson-Nixon and Sponsler] knew how I act, they know that i’m a perfectionist…..they would just try to push me out of there ‘It doesn’t have to be perfect you’re practicing, it’ll get better”.

Students also recently participated in the St.Paul Art Crawl, April 22nd through April 24th as part of the “Twin Cities Students Art Exhibit” in the Dow Gallery along with another exhibit, “Spring Outside of the Box”.

“I’ve never had an art piece on a wall and I never thought I had anything good enough to put on a wall.” said Sophomore Lili Jensen, who submitted a print of a field of sunflowers with a rolling cloud overhead. “It was cool that we could all be there with other good artists.”

Sophomore Inga Schierkolk who submitted an abstract linoleum print and a charcoal drawing of the numbers 0-9, said that without South “I probably wouldn’t have tried…I wouldn’t have thought to [submit art].” Jensen agreed saying, “I like that I was prompted to do it.”

Schierkolk usually uses pencil and paper in her art. “ I enjoy [printmaking and charcoal drawing] because they are so different from each other and also from what I usually do” she explained.

Art is a sure part of the future for all of these young students, though at different levels.  Dean-Wyatt is sure of it saying “I would like [ceramics]  to be my career.” Dusak says she mainly intends to pursue photography and hair styling in her future. “I think maybe when I’m an old woman I’ll get a little wheel and just make some pottery on my own but it’s not something I would do now”, she explained.