stories by Gloria Cowdin and Libby Hyde, photos by Rose Hutchison and Jordan Allen

Check out the videos of all the performances from Creative Grounds!

Junior Madison Fitzgerald sat down at a piano in the Windmoor Center on  Feb. 12 preparing to perform for Creative Grounds. Blinking Christmas lights filled the room and blankets covered the ground. The audience waited in anticipation as Fitzgerald prepared for her performance. Throughout the performance of her self-composed song, the Windmoor Center was silent; then came the applause.

Fitzgerald is on the STA Choir Council which was responsible for planning the first annual Creative Grounds arts showcase. Any student could audition to showcase their work. At Creative Grounds, students showcased everything from monologues to singing and dancing.

“[Creative Grounds is] a place for people to get recognition for stuff they do really well when normally they don’t get that recognition,” Fitzgerald said.

Choir teacher Greg Monsma proposed and moderated the event.

“Everything from from marketing it, to getting donations of food, to auditioning the acts, to putting together the set and design, it’s all [the Choir Council],” Monsma said. “I just sit back and relax.”

Senior Choir Council member Sophie Bono played an important part in the planning and setup. Bono helped decide on the theme, “Bring Your Own Blanket.” Viewers were encouraged to bring pillows, blankets and beanbag chairs to sit on while they watched performances.

According to Bono, the first year of Creative Grounds was “totally successful,” despite “a few technological problems.”

“I’d make the space a little bigger because hopefully there will be more people next year,” Bono said. “Also making sure we have all the technology set up and ready to go because it was kind of disorganized during the show.”

Sophomore Sophia Hall described Creative Grounds as a way to get students involved in the arts in a nonjudgmental, supportive way. Hall performed a solo dance routine at Creative Grounds.

“[Creative Grounds is] just getting people more involved because they’re realizing how talented STA students are,” Hall said. “I think because everyone there was so supportive it gave [performers] a boost of confidence.”

Sophomore audience member Gina Ptacek agreed with Hall’s description of Creative Grounds. According to Ptacek, the atmosphere was nonjudgmental and performers could freely express themselves.

“I thought it was nice and it was really inspiring,” Ptacek said. “It made me want to be a dancer, or sing. I was really impressed with everybody. It was overall a really great performance.”

Mr. Monsma hopes for Creative Grounds to be an annual, student led event at STA. He and members of the Choir Council believe it will become an STA tradition.

“To see students who typically don’t get applause, to get roaring applause from people that they don’t know is heart-warming,” Monsma said. “It really is, and that’s why this event makes so much sense.”

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Senior Taylor Rees, junior Katie Crow and junior Madison Fitzgerald shared original performances of poetry and music during the show.

Taylor Rees’s poem “No Regretz”

N-O   R-E-G-R-E-T-Z

Rees stood in front of a room full of students and parents at Creative Grounds. It was her first time sharing her poetry with a larger scale of people than her close friends.

“It was nerve-racking, but I was excited,” Rees said. “In my poetry, I have a lot to say, and I know it can do a lot of good.”

For this particular poem, Rees said her inspiration came from her friend Louis that recently passed away. According to Rees, he inspired this poem because though he had a difficult past, he put his whole heart into his writing. Rees said Louis was not afraid of being judged and he had a really beautiful heart.

“I thought about how he told me to ‘cherish your mistakes,’” Rees said. “I thought about how if I wanted to express that, it would be cliched. Those people who say ‘no regrets’ don’t really know what it means, and they don’t really care.”

Rees said the true meaning of the phrase “no regrets” is all about knowing that whatever happens in your life, you can take and learn from it.

“If you learn from [your mistakes], when you’re older, you can say, ‘God, I did some stupid stuff, but look where I am now,’” Rees said. “If I hadn’t made those mistakes, it would have been much worse.”

According to Rees, poetry is her way of expressing herself, because “personal expression is incredibly important in being confident.”

“I want to share my poetry because when something happens to me, good or bad, I want to make things better outside of [myself],” Rees said. “If I can learn from this, I can help other people who go through this. That’s what it means to be a good friend and a good person, to do my best by myself and the people around me.”

Katie Crow’s poem “Words”

Crow was having writer’s block one day and was getting off of Facebook chatting with friends. She realized she wanted to write a poem about something. She wrote down some, then erased a lot, then wrote some more. She erased a lot, then continued to write.

“[This poem] is just about words and how they may have impact my life,” Junior Katie Crow said. “I always took them for granted, then I started realizing their power. I started to hate them, then fell in love with them all over again. I see how important words are, but at the same time how important silence is too.”

Inspiration for “Words” came from a poem written by Andrea Gibson, entitled “Letter to a Playground Bully”.

“I wanted to write something like that, so I pushed myself to do so.”

Sometimes, Crow’s inspiration for her poetry comes from a random feeling. And sometimes, she just chooses something to write about then just sits down to write.

“It’s important for people to share their poetry because it isn’t like writing an essay,” Crow said. “A lot of ideas are more easily expressed in poetry rather than a formal essay. You can just express your ideas, and it’s a way for you not to be judged.”

Like Rees, this was the first time Crow had ever recited her poetry rather than simply writing for print.

“I was really excited to share my poetry with people,” Crow said. “I had such good reactions from the judges during auditions. I was hoping for the same reaction from the crowd… Words are really powerful, and you find them to be the most powerful in the oddest settings.”

Madison Fitzgerald’s song “Had to Tell”

It all started with Fitzgerald, just wanting to write something different.

“I wanted to have an upbeat piano song, because most are sad and slow,” Fitzgerald said. “I just kind of draw from whoever I listen to. For the subjects of my songs, I write about what I experience in life or what I have seen other people experience.”

Though she claims her first few songs weren’t very good, Fitzgerald has been writing original songs since she was in grade school.

“There are 3 or 4 songs that are finished but I have the lyrics to 30 or 40,” Fitzgerald said. “I have the melody and the lyrics, but I just don’t have the accompaniment. That’s something I’m working on… It’s a little bit harder to work with the piano [than guitar].”

Fitzgerald has been told she sounds most like Regina Spekor or Ingrid Michaelson.

“It’s cool to be compared to Spektor’s as a songwriter because she always does something different and unique with her accompaniment,” Fitzgerald said.

Writing music is one way she expresses herself and vents out frustration, according to Fitzgerald.

“My favorite part of writing is coming up with the word play, and finding an interesting way to say what I want to say in my lyrics,” Fitzgerald said.

A girl in Fitzgerald’s class came up to her and said she related to Fitzgerald’s song because it reminded her of what she was going through and helped her get through it.

“A freshman too came up to me and told me the song I wrote is her theme song. I realized that it’s not just me that’s involved, my music can help people, and that really cool that I can reach people like that.”