story by Emma Willibey, photo by Julia Hammond
Each spring, seniors in art teacher Theresa Wallerstedt’s art portfolio showcase works spanning high school. Portfolio’s panels appear beside advanced drawing’s blind-contour portraits and drawing I’s scissors, but girls’ evolutions do not shock Wallerstedt.
“I pretty much know who’s going to be in portfolio in drawing I class,” Wallerstedt said. “[Seniors] Tessa [Smith] and Bailey [Whitehead] and Bree [Begnaud]—I knew all those girls had the talent to be in portfolio.”
As a reward for surviving drawing I’s “tediousness,” Wallerstedt enables art portfolio students to experiment before submitting college compilations. Each student designates a theme like “fantasy” or “delusion” to inform her artwork. According to Wallerstedt, the themes arose four years ago to define girls’ focuses.
“I looked at another school’s website,” Wallerstedt said of discovering themes. “There were themes. There were connections. Lightbulb!”
Senior Tessa Smith’s “words to live by” theme samples works like alternative-country band the Avett Brothers’ 2009 track “Ill With Want.” Lyrics “temporary is my time / ain’t nothing on this world that’s mine/ except the will I found to carry on” will accompany a ceramic-etched girl clutching a light amid material objects , Smith said. According to Smith, the theme allows her to reimagine beloved phrases.
“There are several sonnets by Shakespeare that use, like, ‘coral red’ or ‘pearl white,’ and I would take those quotes and depict them in an artistic fashion,” Smith said of her theme. “Some [words] are meant to be depicted; some are really meaningful words that don’t have a lot of imagery in them that you have to kind of mess with.”
While colleges do not require themed portfolios, senior Bailey Whitehead said art portfolio’s standards familiarized her with “high contrast and low saturation.” The consistency will improve Whitehead’s submission to Chicago, Il.’s School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“It looks cooler if everything you have in your portfolio is related to each other,” Whitehead said. “If there’s a bunch of range, [viewers] can tell everything you’re doing, but it’s just kind of all over the place.”
Smith said she will send portfolios to Ann Arbor, Mi.’s University of Michigan and St. Louis, Mo.’s Washington University. According to Smith, the portfolio’s artist statement, descriptions and 15 to 20 pictures chart her progress.
“There’s one chalk image of my eighth grade music teacher’s baby [in my portfolio],” Smith said. “In January [of advanced drawing] I just kind of figured out how pastels worked. And the rest of the time after that I knew exactly what I was gonna do and I knew exactly how to do it.”
According to Smith and Whitehead, financial insecurity undermines artistic careers. Smith may explore graphic design, while Whitehead favors film. Although the students may not encounter ceramics in college, Wallerstedt said portfolio’s purpose transcends visual art.
“What every artist desires to do is find their own style, and I think portfolio lets [students] do that,” Wallerstedt said.
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