Some of Woodgrove’s art students find themselves uninterested in continuing on the traditional art pathway: Art 1, Art 2, Art 3, Art 4/AP Art. Maybe they want to take a different elective, or are interested in a specific piece of art. To try and offer the most options to these students, Woodgrove has semester-long courses that look into more specific art disciplines that are not covered as thoroughly in the regular pathway.
Graphic Design and Drawing and Painting are taught by art teacher Mr. Shawn Grove. This year, Grove is teaching Drawing and Painting in the fall semester and Graphic Design in the spring semester. In Drawing and Painting and Graphic Design, Grove will teach about color theory and different design techniques. He finds his semester classes beneficial, as it can be harder to plan lessons for a full year course when they are so specific towards one art form. “You’re kind of hyper focused, and you’re about to chisel down the content and the skills to really focus on,” Grove expressed.
Ceramics and Sculpture are taught by art teacher Mr. Geoff DeMark. Ceramics, this year, is the fall semester course for DeMark, with Sculpture being the spring semester course. In his Ceramics and Sculpture classes, DeMark likes the switch in topics half way through the year. “It gives you a chance to experience more variety. That way, they can have a cool and intensive experience, but they’re able to move on,” he shared. DeMark likened the experience to semester-long classes in college. However, disciplines like sculpture and ceramics require a lot more time than some other art forms and would benefit from a full year long course. For example, in Ceramics, students work almost exclusively with the pottery wheel. They have to learn all the different techniques that come with spinning clay, like how much water to use, how to use the different tools, the different types of clay, and the ways the clay behaves on the wheel.
Next year, Ceramics will join Photography in becoming a full year course. The current planning of Ceramics as a semester course is very fast paced. For ceramics, it takes a long time to learn how to use the wheel, thus making it hard to teach ceramics in only a semester. Through the lengthening of the course, DeMark hopes to be able to cover more clay techniques. “Especially with clay, it takes years to really learn it. If we had more time, we can get them further on the pottery wheel and further with this hand building technique,” he explained.
Some students really like taking an art class, but find themselves disinterested in continuing on the pathway. For senior and former Ceramics student Maggi Bugaj, this was just the case. She took Art 1 and felt that the drawing and painting side of it was not her thing, but she loved the 3D aspect of art and decided to take Ceramics. Through this class, she was able to learn a multitude of things that she would not get through the normal art pathway. “I loved learning the wheel because it’s just such a different thing. It’s nothing like you’ve done before, it’s a new experience and you get a lot of new skills that you need to learn,” Bugaj explained.
Other art students might want to take a class in addition to their normal art pathway course. For junior and former Graphic Design student, Emily Macduffee, she was in the normal art pathway and wanted to expand her knowledge and understanding of graphic design. Macduffee explained how they were able to learn things that would not be taught in the art pathway and were still helpful to them and their future. “I think it deserves a higher recognition due to the few students that took it with me. I learned a lot and gained a lot of skills using online design,” she mentioned.
Even if a student is not looking for a class on the art curriculum, taking semester courses can be very beneficial. Grove shared, “There’s something kind of special about them. You get a small bite of something and then students can get another flavor. Even going down to Home Ec or Tech Ed, they can have those experiences which I think is important.”