Recently, the juniors and seniors of the Honors Art and Photography programs renewed the tradition of a field trip into Philadelphia. The 2D and 3D students were accompanied by Ms. Sara Krunpick-Ritz, Upper School Art Teacher and Head of Truesdell House, and Mr. David Love, Visual Arts Department. In addition, Mr. Nic Wynia, Upper School Photography Teacher, and Ms. Emma Hearn, Upper School Drama Teacher and Belfry Theater Director, took the Honors Photography students to walk around the city and experience the beauty of captured moments.
At the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the juniors and seniors in Honors 2D and 3D visited the “Women in Motion” Art exhibition, which was created by Dr. Anna Marley. It showcases more than eighty works of art made by over fifty women artists in America from PAFA’s founding to 1805. The goal of the exhibition is to inspire the new generations of visitors, collectors, and scholars to appreciate women artists.
After looking around the exhibition, the students worked in the art gallery for about an hour. Upon their return to GA, Ms. Ritz discussed the “miniature works of art” her students are making. She says that her students are “creating miniature versions of works of art that they saw;” these works of art will be postcard sized.
For example, Charlotte Harobin ‘22, a senior on the trip, is “recreating a painting of a woman with orange trees in the background, made from materials like “cardboard stacked on top of each other”.
Ms. Ritz believes this trip helped art students “see”, elaborating that it is “not like 20/20 vision” but rather “learning to see the world around them.” She hopes they will use this knowledge to grow their creativity. In general, the students loved the trip to the Academy. Harobin concludes that she enjoyed that for the first time the visual arts students got to “get exposure to the art outside of GA.”
The Honors Photography classes also had a field trip in recent weeks. The juniors and seniors walked through the city to gain new perspectives that they could capture in their cameras. Livy Shafer ‘23, an Honors Photo student, said the trip helped her to learn “that the beauty of photography is that it can shine light on the unseen.”
The GA Honors Visual Arts students and teachers loved exploring the community beyond GA to help further their artistic abilities.