Pen Argyl Students Sketching Up Success at the Art Show

Alison Cesare has been the art teacher at PAHS for the past 28 years. This year was her final year here, her final art show. She did not make any big changes this year. “Every show is good.”

With all of the art shows she has hosted, her favorite was her 1st show in 1998. In that show, Cesare said, “We brought in live trees and plants. The school provided refreshments, and it was great.”

Every art show includes copious amounts of art from freshmen to seniors. Not only do students in art with Cesare get to have artwork up.

Students with our industrial arts teacher, Carly Kappler, had the opportunity to have their art displayed.

This was Kappler's first year and art show at PAHS. She was busy preparing for the show, “by gathering students' projects together, creating name placards, scanning student notebooks, and also by creating project descriptions for my Engineering Concepts class projects so that people know what the project was.”

She was really excited to see all of her students' work displayed to the school and community. Kappler said, “I am really proud of all of their hard work throughout the last two marking periods and really believe that others will find them as nice and innovative as I do.”

She was also excited to see all of the amazing artwork from Ceasre's students. Alongside Ceasre’s students, Kappler put out a variety of her students' Practical Arts projects.

In Kappler's Industrial Arts class, you saw student Step Stools, Wall Art, TinkerCAD House Projects, and Chindogu Projects. 

In Kappler's Engineering Class, you saw students' Bug List Projects, Rube Goldberg Machines, Sphero Robot Obstacle Courses, Wind Powered Cars, Bottle Rockets, and the Backpack Project.

All of her students' artwork was displayed, but for her seniors in the class, she put a “senior spotlight" star next to their name. She wants everyone to “be sure to keep your eye out for all of our seniors!”

The seniors in art 3/4 get their own panels; these panels are rolling bulletin boards and tables in case of 3D art. 

They were in charge of labeling their own panel art and where their art went on the panel. There were 11 seniors who had panels. 

Kylee Uhler, senior, has been doing art for as long as she can remember and was so excited to have a panel and see everybody else's artwork.

Uhler has always loved art and is inspired by her sister. She said, “Art gives me something to do in my free time, and I've always watched my sister draw. She's amazing at drawing.”

She will continue to do art in her free time. One of her favorite pieces of her own that was displayed was her Yin-Yang jewelry holder. She says it is “super convenient.” 

Brynlee Compton is another senior who has also been doing art her whole life. She keeps her style simple by doing mainly black and white designs.

She said, “I started with drawing when I was little because I saw my dad could draw, and it turns out I could too.” 

Compton does not plan to do art right after she graduates, but eventually she wants to get back into tattooing. 

Although she does not know how many of her pieces will be displayed, her favorite was the only drawing that she put up, this is her favorite media to do.

Amber Gallagher, a senior, has been doing art for quite some time now. She said, “I started to develop my artistic skill at a young age in middle school when we would do different crafts.”

She has always been intrigued by how there are so many different forms of art. She loves art and plans on doing some art pieces after she graduates, but in her own time. 

She said, “I do not know the exact number of pieces that will be on my panel, but I have taken art every year of high school, so it may be a lot.” 

Alongside that, she said, “I do not necessarily have a favorite piece because all artworks are special in their own way. There are too many to choose from.”

She was so excited about the show, she believes it was super cool to see how talented everyone in our school is.

Another senior, Kayley Gregalis, looked around her house to try to find things she had made in previous years of school and projects she did in her free time. 

She ended up displaying mostly all 3D art rather than drawings, but she still had a decent amount of both. 

According to how long she has been doing art, she said, “I have been doing art since I was about 3 or so, even though I was not good at that age, I was always creative and created random little projects all throughout my life. School-wise, I did it all through the grades and took at least one class each year of high school.”