Walking throughout the halls of Central, the prominence of artwork on the walls is not overwhelming, but somewhat refreshing. Almost everywhere to turn, there is some example of a student’s creative liberties exhibited for the eyes of Central to view, comment on, and discuss.

These students use their own, mostly self-taught creativity and drive to pursue their interest of contributing to the art movement. Students with this drive have been walking throughout Central’s halls for decades, and many still remain.

In the art sector of Central, the students are preparing for the highly-acclaimed Homecoming Art Show, which will be showcased throughout Homecoming week, Sept. 21 through 25.

One of Central’s highest art classes, AP Studio Art, is usually taken after Honors Portfolio, where students create just about a piece each week to develop a portfolio of their work. This work may be in the medium of paint, ink, pencil, or others, as long as it responds to their concentration. In art, a concentration is a common theme or motif of an artist’s work. For example, art students Donna Dimitrova, Sandra Keta, and Ruoqi Way have concentrations based on the terrors of nature, a boy in a trailer park, and privileged vs. unprivileged, respectively.

This class runs like your run-of-the-mill AP class: their paintings are submitted to judges and given a score out of five. These paintings and those of which made in Honors Portfolio will be used when applying for an art school and jobs in the future.

Most pieces in the class are pertaining to their concentration, but as Homecoming Week is approaching, these AP Art students as well as other Central art students, have switched their focus to their breathe, or a break from the concentration, to the Homecoming Art Show piece. This year’s theme is the same as the Homecoming theme itself: Devils Under the Water (No Mermaids).

“[Our teacher] Ms. Milas is cracking down on the kids who put mermaids in their pieces,” Keta said. “They thought they were slick.”

The students in the course have a contrastingly upbeat sense of humor to the class’s strict deadlines and startling grading scale.

“You don’t balance this class,” Keta said, laughing.

“On top of this [Homecoming piece], we have another piece due and then we’ll get another one assigned and another and another,” Dimitrova said.

However, a consensus has been made by the students that even though the class’s deadlines are harsh and the time-consumption is especially difficult for students in other advanced classes and extracurriculars, when a student is in AP Art, their main focus is art itself. Jocelyn Enriquez, senior in the class, plans on a career dedicated to art, and promptly skips other classes in order to dabble in Ms. Milas’s assortment of mediums, to her other teachers dismay.

The Homecoming Art Show will be open in the art gallery, room 216, Sept. 21 through 25. Students can still submit paintings, drawings, jewelry, videos, and more to be displayed in the art office by Sept. 18. Contact Ms. Milas for more details on how to become involved in the school’s art department.

Students in Ceramics race to finish their Homecoming art pieces.