By Ezra Caber

The Granada Hills Charter (GHC) Art Show has been a key event on campus for many years. The Art Show represents student performing arts such as music, dance, and theater to student visual arts such as ceramics, drawing, graphic design, and painting. The Art Show allows observers to see the progress and creativity of many students who take GHC art classes.

For the first time, freshmen were able to visit the show during their English classes this year thanks to the collaboration between the VAPA and English Departments.

At the Art Show, freshmen participated in activities that were meant to enhance their experience with viewing student art such as creating a poem or backstory for a specific art piece.

For example, English teacher Rachael Phipps, assigned a project where her students would identify an artwork they found that they could relate to their place-based research project. Phipps project asks students to think critically not only about a location but that location’s history, and its impact on indigenous populations. By encouraging students to connect that to an artwork, she asks students to think further outside the box in their writing and presentation.

“It is really important to maintain and support arts in education,” Phipps said. “This collaboration opportunity is really interesting since so much of what we do in English is interpretive and creative, which is also what’s done in VAPA. Bringing the two departments together helps expand on students’ abilities to think critically and creatively.”

The VAPA department, headed by Department Chair Julie Neumann, created a plan for this event, and worked to receive approval from administration in order to make sure the use of class time was well spent.

Neumann hopes for teachers to take advantage of this event and for students to gain more interest so they could eventually join an artistic class or group on campus.

“Hopefully with exposure to the arts, they can see what’s available to them,” Neumann said. “Some students might love orchestra music but not realize we have an intro and advanced class. When they see the director and students performing, they can consider becoming a part of that. Or some might see paintings and say, ‘Oh I see that they’ve done beautiful artwork, and I want to do that.’”

Luckily, students like freshman Ina Uri, are involved in the arts, as she participated in the art show by performing a dance piece. Although she is already part of the arts program, she has found further interest in ceramics after attending the art show during her English class.

“I think this experience was beneficial because you get to explore other classes and it made me more interested in ceramics,” Uri said. “All the projects look really fun, and I’d love to explore my creativity by doing something like that.”