Through this piece, I wanted to explore the concept of memory in a way where young and pleasant memories, such as childhood, often become distorted, forgotten, even lost entirely when one reflects back to it in the future, emphasizing the effects of the comparatively bleak reality of growing up. Using charcoal establishes a monotone, old photograph-like setting, and the duality of black and white conveys the simultaneous presence and absence of the memory. The face of the girl may have been one of happiness, sadness, surprise, or many other expressions; by replacing her face with a gaping hole, the portrait becomes slightly unsettling, as the void challenges conventional notions of recognition and highlights the haziness of our past selves in a distant memory. Back then, what did I feel? What did I think? Who even was I? Questioning the boundaries of reflection and the mysteries that lie within, I invite the contemplation of identity through the duality of remembering as well as forgetting. By visualizing this feeling through the piece, I seek to evoke a shared sense of wonder about how well we truly know the little children residing within our memory.

My name is Katie. I have autism and struggle with speech. My mom and I communicate with speech (a little), sign language and spelling on a letter board. My mom helps me with typing because I can't do that yet. I attend a school in Menlo Park called Open Mind School. Before that, no one taught me anything, and definitely not art! I love art. Art is freedom. I don't have much freedom. My art teacher showed us a painting of a waterfall with rocks. I liked it, but wanted mine to be more colorful! There was energy in the water. I needed color to express the energy. I know what the colors should be, but sometimes my feelings about what I am creating influence my color choices. I like to do art because it allows me to express myself better than with words. Words are difficult. Sometimes impossible. Art allows me to express things I can't say in words.

For this piece, I chose to make the work a letter B to represent my name, Ben. I constructed this letter in a western font style because I wanted to have the piece reflect my love for the western style and scenery. I constructed a cowboy hat that I put on top of my letter, three western style buildings, bullet impacts on the back, a desert mountain, river and cactus on the interior of the letter, and I covered the entire piece with large and small scratch and wear marks. While constructing this piece I wanted to give it a worn and dirty look which I used the large and small scratches to achieve. The cowboy hat I also used a darker black glaze for the first layer removing parts and then three layers of a lighter black to give it a worn and used look. For the western town I included a mix of bright, dull, and varying colors to create a lot of variation and life while sticking to the western theme. The bullet impacts I glazed with a metallic bronze and the mountains with multiple colors including a black, brown, and tan that I removed and layered to bring more dimension. The river and cactus I used a green and light blue for to help bring focus to the interior parts of the letter.

This piece represents the occurrence of an overshoot where humans take away all the resources the Earth provides us until we pluck the last flower out. The hand and the surrounding is formed by sand which represents the population of 8 billion people that inhabit in Earth. The yellow daffodil represents the last hope and the future of our lives which will be stolen when all of nature's gift is taken away.

The feeling of drowning in pressure is a reality in the sport of water polo. I wanted to capture the tightness of this suffocating feeling and add the back layer to convey the loneliness of it. This feeling is not limited to water sports. Many teenagers feel as if they are drowning under the expectations of life and no one can understand. My hope is that we can be seen and viewers can relate, even for a split second, when they see this piece. My artistic process started with a thumbnail sketch and reference photo taking. The idea evolved into a sketch and blocking in colors. I first tried to block in the colors on the sketch with gouache. The gouache and the choice of reference picture weren’t working. The gouache didn’t sit the way I hoped it would. I had to make the executive decision to restart the piece. My idea was very strong, but the execution didn’t go as planned. I started over with a different reference photo, one that I felt the feeling of drowning was captured better and I switched to poster paint, which was still out of my comfort zone but I liked the look better. After finishing the main subjects painting, I started to add the elements around the face and the background. I used foam to add more depth. I also used CD cases and wooden blocks to give the background more distance from the main part.

I’ve always never truly knew who I am, and every time I thought I did, my view of myself would constantly change. This painting really helped me uncover this feeling with honesty. A difficulty I faced while painting was blending and shading the skin, hair, and clothes. As you can see, my face is covered with a Zinnia. Zinnia’s represent everlasting love, in the painting, it represents the fact that even though I may never know who I was meant to be, I love the way I change and experience different lifestyles. You may also notice text written around the painting, the text reads “who am I?” which connects to my confusing interchanging identity. I hope this painting helps inspire others to take their complicated feelings into meaningful paintings.

Even if I don’t have time for art in months because of school, I never love it more than when my hands are gray with graphite or colorful with paint. This is my very first realistic portrait as a traditional artist who’s been drawing since I was very small, which makes it very special to me. The man in the drawing is Tyler Okonma, known professionally as Tyler the Creator, and he is one of my best inspirations as an artist. His new wave of aesthetics and fashion was unique in the hiphop and rap scene, with his colorful pastel, odd, yet classy appeal and expression of his queer identity. Tyler often features portrayals of BIPOC in the typical European luxury in his music videos and clothing brand, he uses his music as an outlet of his creative and personal identity as an African American and a queer man in a typically homophobic environment to empower him and others around him. I associate some of my fondest memories with my friends with his music. I used to listen to him on walks home with my closest friends blended with the sound of our laughter. I never love it more than when his instrumentals, intermixed with classical music and his lyrical anecdotes fill my ears when drawing. I chose to draw him because of my admiration for him, his bravery, and how truly inspirational he has been in recent years.

This is a charcoal piece I did depicting a still life composition that I organized myself. In it is a man's head surrounded by various items including a vase of flowers, a white glass bottle, a dark glass bottle, and a wooden bird statue. I named this piece "Transparency" to both reference the various glass objects in this artwork, and also to comment on the vulnerability of life when in nature.

During a visit to India, my grandmother showed me something that would stick with me for years: the fragile, elusive touch-me-not plant, scientifically known as “mimosa pudica.” Its remarkable self-defensive mechanism, where it curls its leaves inwards when touched, resonated immensely with my own tendency to avoid conflict. Growing up, I often found myself conforming to others, much like the touch-me-not expends energy to withdraw from predators, and later realized I should stand up for myself more. My artistic journey captures my transformation of this mindset, symbolized by the relentless ocean waves threatening to wash away the touch-me-not. Since I’ve always been intrigued by the ocean's ability to erase and shape the shore, I juxtaposed this ocean with the ethereal touch-me-not, creating a scene that encapsulates the serenity of moving on from past ideals. My work also reflects my fading connection to my Indian heritage, with waves of change symbolizing the cultural deterioration my American environment causes. Every time my parents and I engage in a “puja”(prayer), which I am named after, a small part of me feels that the act is foreign. Whenever my parents speak of Indian delicacies from their childhood, it all just feels like nostalgia I had never known. My art helps me explore my identity in ways that words simply cannot, with the sublime quality of my work mirroring the beauty I find in it. My artistic process, above all, encapsulates my multifaceted personal growth, cultural identity, and the shifting tides of life itself.

“Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" references intense strife, similar to the experiences faced by a recycling center worker. We are currently trapped in finding a way out of climate change, but something people often fall back on to “prevent” it is recycling. However, there is a gravity of simply reusing: the items sent to these centers are physically sorted into what can actually be recycled by humans, who have to endure toiling hours and the constant screeching of scraping metal and clanking glass. The difficulty of actually running these plants are reflected in the blue haze and eerie depiction of “Toil and Trouble”. The indigo coloring of the machinery and containers all point back to the worker, who almost blends in with the rest of the facility. He is unable to separate himself from the clutter, and reverse the mistakes of the thousands of people who have chosen to believe that blindly throwing anything into a recycling bin fixes climate change. And the pile of what seems like trash is the centerpiece; the viewer’s eyes are guided to it by the various diagonals stemming from the corners of the canvas. Its sheer mass and outstanding but complicated color scheme demonstrates the amount of work needed to sort through both the pile, as well as the issue of climate change. With this piece, I convey the dreary gloom of recycling centers, and how we still have much further to go in fighting for our environment.

To walk under the umbrella is a piece I connect deeply to. The girl walks in a world of gloom and a downpour of rain, under her own little pocket of warmth. Underneath the umbrella, away from the rain and staring eyes of the world, she can be anything she wants to be. Her world can be as magical as she can imagine it. An umbrella signifies protection, as the shade of her umbrella takes her to a world where she can be herself and better. Her bright and warm colors overpower the darkness and gloom that surrounds her, pushing aside the murky feelings and pain that come from the real world. I’ve felt the pain and anger that comes from hearing other’s scathing words, and often wished that I could push away the words that torment me late in the night. This painting is the embodiment of the peace I wish I could feel.

Every day I seek ways to express my creativity and gain new experiences. For this year's Mother's Day, I decided to create a woodburning piece that would encompass beauty and strength. I wanted to depict a tiger, my mother's favorite animal, set ablaze as a symbol of the fiery love and protection that my mom embodies. Woodburning, aka pyrography, involves using a heated tool to burn designs onto wood. It requires patience, precision, and a steady hand. To create my tiger, I selected a beautiful piece of cherry, ensuring a suitable canvas. The process began by sketching the tiger on paper, etching the stripes and flames. Next came the transfer. I chose to use a combination of tracing paper and charcoal paper to transfer the sketch onto the wood. Then the burning began. The process of shading and blending required meticulousness, as one wrong move could mar the piece. As I finished the burning, I marveled at every stroke and burn. Each came together to celebrate my mom's devotion to my life. Presenting this woodburning piece to my mom on Mother's Day was emotional. Through this artwork, I conveyed my gratitude and love for her support. The tiger on fire embodied her incredible strength as a mother. Creating this piece for Mother's Day was a labor of love, allowing me to express my heartfelt appreciation for my mom. The beauty and symbolism captured within the artwork ensured a gift that would resonate with my mom for years to come.

My piece is about my experience with my tic disorder. (A tic is an involuntary action or sound. There are many causes of tics, the most well-known being Tourette’s) The collage has a TV-static texture which represents how it feels to suppress tics. The marionette hand and yarn represent how the tics feel like I’m being controlled or like I don’t have any control over my body. The piece is a self-portrait, which further emphasizes the connection of the marionette hand and me.

With this piece I wanted to demonstrate the internal pressure I feel in my sport. I feel so much passion for figure skating, but along with it comes expectations. The ice cracking beneath me demonstrates the uncertainty, anxiety, and self doubt I can feel as an athlete. The figure in full view is me reaching downward towards the cracks. This is a reflection of the empathy I wish others would express to me, in lending me a hand when I feel this way. This piece is also a promise that if I ever see someone struggling the way I have, I will not hesitate to reach out to them.

The meaning I was trying to portray through this piece is that love can be both harmful as well as upsetting. I also wanted to play into the idea of read strings of fate, and how people are destined to be together. On the left side, I chose to depict more of a deadly, hurtful love. I did this by making the strings look like they are hurting the hand that it’s wrapped around. On that same side, I decided to add some Heliotrope flowers to the border frame. These flowers are often depicted as meaning love, but seeing as they are a poisonous flower, it felt fitting to use them. On the right side, I tried to depict the string almost causing the person sadness. Maybe they are sad that they are connected to this person or the fact that they could be in love with someone else. The flowers that I decided to put on this side of the frame are called Forget Me Nots. These flowers are also normally depicted with love, but seem to have an undertone of saying that you will not forget them.