Acrylic paintings, pottery, video, fabric, even hand-blown glass, along with a student-written drama were all featured at Elphi's Fine Arts Night on June 9. The work of the many skilled teens proved rich in variety and talent.
Photography has always been strong at Elphinstone Secondary School, and this year's show was no exception. On display were some terrific portraits by Teresa Christiansen, the manipulated images of Tara Brown, macro zooms from Ryan Macklam, recent black and white work by Holly McCrane and portraits by Erin Robertson and Steven Houden. The photo ads by various photography students that warned against cigarette smoking were clever.
Several of the more prolific students had displays of their own. Caiti Bodmer showed her acrylic fantasy figures, while Aja Hlatky demonstrated acrylics, ceramics, mosaic and photos. Sam Lyons is a super artist. Visitors were greeted by one of his amazing sculptures: an ogre feasting on some poor creature's flesh. Grisly it may be, but very realistic. Lyons' lion, rendered in ceramic, was a much more benign animal.Teenager Dayna Scodras says she has been painting "forever." Her interpretation of fairy figures and a convincing dandelion fluff ball were on par with high-quality commercial illustrations.
Izora, a January graduate of Elphi, will be taking time off her artistic ventures to travel. Her display included acrylics, a papier mâché figure and mosaics and featured a pendant of hand-blown glass, her latest medium. The acting 11/12 class presented their student written play, Who's Who in Wyyzville, directed by Bobbi McLeod.The light-hearted play contrasts city and country life with improvisational flair, then relates what happens when a greedy developer from the city, Mr. Corp (played by Cam La Fave), visits the countryside to buy up land, mine gravel, cut trees and offer citizens free coffee and the opportunity to be filmed. Have these kids been attending Gibsons' council meetings? All the issues were current. In one first-rate nightmare sequence in which concerned citizens trouble the mayor's dreams, we come to understand a little better the worries of a public official in a small town. And that's no minor achievement for a high school play.
