Three STA art students attended art institutions this summer from around the country in order to gain experience as artists, earn college credit, and explore the possibility of an art career according to senior Anna Rayburn.

Michaela Knittel

Senior Michaela Knittel attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York for the Pre-College Summer Program for one month last July. According to pratt.edu, it is an intense immersion experience with over 400 high school students seizing the opportunity to experience college level study.

Knittel chose to travel for the camp because of her interest in attending the institute next year.

‘[New York] is just so much more fun,’ Knittel said. ‘There is a lot of stuff to do and you are surrounded by all of interesting people.’

Knittel attended class each day but also had free time to spend exploring the city. According to Knittel, her schedule was very busy, always working on projects outside of class sometimes staying up all night.

‘[The most beneficial thing I learned was how to] stay focused because you always wanted to go out with friends, but you really just needed to buckle down and get your money’s worth,’ Knittel said.

According to Knittel, after college she has had the dream to write and illustrate children’s books, hoping her background in art will be beneficial.

Clare Odegard

Senior Clare Odegard lived on the Kansas City Art Institute campus last summer for three weeks for the Pre-College Art Lab. According to Odegard, the residency program was the most convenient choice because of affordability, the three hours of college credit, and automatic one semester living center grant if she ends up attending the institute.

The schedule was very demanding according to Odegard. She chose to focus on painting but also attended a daily required life drawing class.

‘I am definitely not as afraid to just do something and not really care what it looks like,’ Odegard said. ‘I have gotten better at just looking something and drawing it as oppose to just looking at a picture.”

As for the future, Odegard has an interest in both art and woman’s studies and is looking to find a career combining the two.

‘Right now a lot of young arts and are afraid to just do something,’ Odegard said. ‘I really learned at the camp to just stat making stuff and out of that I will be able to find my style and my voice.’

Anna Rayburn

Along with Odegard, senior Anna Rayburn attended the Pre-College Art Lab at the Kansas City Art Institute. Rayburn also lived in the dorms, never returning home despite its location less than eight miles away from the institute.

Although Rayburn is undecided between studying fibers and costuming or photography and film after high school, she chose to focus on photography at her time at the art institute. Rayburn also took the required life drawing class and a writing class twice a week.

‘You have to be able to talk about and write about your ideas and your work and express it in word form as well as visual form,’ Rayburn said. ‘I learned [these ideas] studying a lot of photography theory. We had to develop of concepts, talk about it, and write about it and brainstorm and research. There is a lot of that that goes into it that I didn’t know about [before attending art camp].’