Each year, Advanced Placement students have the opportunity to display and develop their artistic abilities through their sustained investigation. This is an assignment where students pick prompts and create multiple works of art revolving around their chosen themes. The limits of art are very much endless,

The subjective qualities of art opens up the possibility to so many wondrous and diverse works of art. On May 5th, the annual CKHS AP Art exhibit was held where the public got the opportunity to behold months worth of student artwork. Here are three talented students, out of many, speaking on their individual journeys of artistic growth, struggles, and triumphs.

The first student is Elliot McCorkle, a Central Kitsap junior, who has multiple years of experience when it comes to working with sustained investigations.

“My sustained investigation was about the different aspects of communication; I chose this prompt because the topic was something that I found very interesting and personally relevant, and I also wanted to build my portraiture skills. This is a prompt that I’ve been continually working on since my sophomore year (I am a junior now). Originally, I started out with the prompt “embrace,” but over time, that evolved into a more general exploration of human connection, emotion, and communication. A lot of my pieces are inspired by personal experiences or things that I’ve witnessed that I then try to represent visually.  Occasionally, I might see a photograph or hear a few words, and then an idea will form from that little fragment and I can develop it into a full piece.”

McCorkle shares what they feel on mistakes and improvement, “Honestly, I always feel like I would want to ‘do better’ on a piece after I have completed it or turned it in.  There always seems to be room for improvement or things that I would like to change.”

McCorkle talks about their most favored piece and the meaning behind it, “So far, my favorite piece is one of my most recent ones–it’s a faceless figure that is curled up and covered with eyes, which turned out really well.  It accomplished what I was trying to say–I was exploring the idea of body language–and it also turned out how I wanted it to aesthetically. It feels very complete, and I had a few people at the art show tell me that they could understand the meaning behind it without my explanation.” 

McCorkle shares the impact of their prompt and how it’s effected them as an artist, “I do think this was a good prompt for me; as AP art students, we come up with our prompts ourselves, which allows us to choose something that is interesting to us. 

Communication is something that we all experience, giving me a broad range of topics to explore, and it also gives me the chance to create emotionally meaningful artwork. As I said before, this is a portfolio I’ve been working on for close to two years, and my growth over time has been significant. It also helped me develop a process for incorporating meaning into pieces and planning out the different elements in the artwork.”

McCorkle ends with how they may change their sustained investigation for the future, “I’m a multimedia artist, so I usually use a bit of everything. I’m not completely sure what prompt or investigation that I would choose, but it would definitely be loose and open for exploration.”

Here is McCorkle’s favorite piece featured in their portfolio:

The next AP Art student is Ozzy Casey, a CK senior, who has had a quite a lot of experience with AP art classes and sustained investigations.

“I chose mortality for my prompt because honestly, I was running out of ideas. And that was the first thing that came to mind when I was trying to come up with something. What inspired my pieces was also the first thing that came to mind. So whenever I had a canvas or anything like that, there was no prior planning. So I just kind of went ahead and went with the flow and it came out looking nice.”

Casey talks about the mistake along the journey of creating their portfolio,”There are a couple of pieces I wish I could’ve done better with. One canvas was supposed to be this, priest dude. But it was just so messy. There was too much going on and I can’t believe I submitted it. The other one was a painting of a skeleton and it just didn’t look as good as I wanted it to. It was too wide.”

Casey shares info about their favorite piece and the process behind it, “My favorite piece has to be the book cover piece that I made. I painted it over this book cover. And it was like this old Victorian painting. I can’t remember the name of it, but I painted the background red and then just wrote all over the background and it looked really cool.” They then share info on the piece that represented their prompt [mortality] the most, “I think the piece to most represent my prompt would probably have to be the Latin piece that I made. It was like a yellow background with a Latin poem. That was a Latin story it was talking about the point of view of this student that lost his brother. I tried to paint what I thought grief looked like. The foreground was just like a bunch of ink pad smearing and then I painted over it to make it look like a face and I love that one a lot.”

Casey shares more about their prompt and the effects their project had on them as an artist, “I think this was a good prompt for me. I feel like towards the end I definitely wrapped it up nicely. It kind of made a decent story. It was pretty cool. Doing these pieces definitely helped me grow as an artist. I don’t think I’ve painted as much as I have with this project. I only ever really do sketches and like some digital art and stuff like that, but I never paint usually. So this is really fun to do because every single one of my pieces had painting involved with it.”

Casey ends with a thought for the future on if they were to create another prompt driven portfolio, “I think I’d definitely go for some kind of folklore, weird cryptic kind of prompt for my next theme. And then I’d probably still do painting because I think it’s really fun.”

Here are a few pieces featured in Casey’s portfolio:

Gallery • 4 Photos

Ozzy Casey

Last but not least is Isabel Fleck, a CK senior, who has also had quite a bit of experience with AP Art classes and sustained investigations.

“I chose to do my prompt on the effects of societal pressures and how this coincides with maturity and finding an understanding of oneself truly. Finding one’s place in the world. I felt that this was something that a lot of people could relate to and was something I was personally struggling with.”

Fleck discusses what inspired her along the way, “I based the pieces on personal emotions, and experiences, using symbolism oftentimes to show these struggles and fears.”

Fleck shares her thoughts on her mistakes and what improvements she could’ve made, “I guess I wish I painted the mushrooms on the person standing on the buildings a bit better, they are kind of soft and not very detailed looking. I also think it would have had a greater impact if I used some clay and resin to make the structures pop.”

Fleck talks about her most successful pieces, “I personally really like my painting of the hourglass. I feel like this piece best portrays the sense of pressure and lost dreams and is one of my more personal ones.” She soon talks about the piece that best represents her prompt [effects of social pressures], “I think the piece of the flower figure in the sewer, as it best shows the result, of leaning to coincide with both your fears and the ideas of self (finding balance internally while finding strength to pursue yourself).”

Fleck discusses the effects making art for this prompt had on her, “… it was nice to put any internal thoughts and feelings out on canvas, sort of relaxing, I guess…Given this was the first time I started to work with acrylic paints, I’d say I improved quite a bit using different mediums. This pushed me out of my comfort zone, so definitely worth it.”

Fleck ends with a thought for the future on if she were to make art for another prompt-driven portfolio, “I would want to give a prompt on the environment and technology and how these two works together to keep each other going. And I would try to explore a bit more of the digital works and some 3d images. But some pieces I would keep with my acrylic and clay mixes. I feel like by mixing these two mediums, I could create a really nice transition from more organic, to more digital styles, telling the story better.”

Here are a few pieces features in Flecks portfolio:

Gallery • 8 Photos