A treasure is hiding behind the unassuming exterior of a little building on Dronningens Gade.
The little room usually displays only the portraits of the governor and the lieutenant governor, but since January it’s been adorned with jewel-like pastels, watercolors and other media—all the talent of the students of the School of Visual Arts and Careers.
That unassuming little building is also usually the boardroom of the V.I. Board of Education. Board members recognized the amassed students’ talent and asked to display their work in the sparsely decorated boardroom.
On Thursday afternoon the board held a reception to celebrate the exhibit.
Board members got the idea on a trip to Washington, D.C., where young artists’ work is displayed in the halls of the U.S. Capitol Building.
At a time when the board has been asked to trim its budget by 25 percent, the exhibit was a great way to dress up the spartan space and at the same time provide a venue for terrific work that otherwise might not get a public viewing.
“We’ve talked about the possibility of making this an annual event,” board member Arah Lockhart said.
The 20 or so works displayed around the room feature projects that the students have worked on in class, and each is identified with the name of the work, the artist’s name and a price. At least one bears a “sold” sign.
Many of the paintings document the interior of the J. Antonio Jarvis House on Polyberg, where the class meets six hours per week. The students used watercolors to portray the period furnishings in the building, and many of these are displayed on the walls of the boardroom.
Charlotte Amalie High School sophomore Jasmine Lindquist captured three antiques in her watercolor, "Jarvis House Interior," as well as another watercolor, in a twist of artistic irony. The turned legs of a small table are so sensitively interpreted that it shows the roundness of the table’s decoration using skillful attention to light and shadow.
“This was the first time that I was painting furniture using watercolor,” the sophomore said.
Lindquist said that her instructor showed her how to use different techniques to work with watercolor, including how to overcome mistakes and how to achieve a dry-brush look. Watercolor is a newer medium to the young artist, who said that while she likes the control that colored pencil offers, watercolor offers “amazing effects.”
The pastels on the other side of the room have almost a magnetic effect on exhibit-goers.
A member of the program since ninth grade, Charlotte Amalie Senior Lavan Maddox’s “Green Apples” is a work with a sophistication that belies his age and experience.
Three apples, set against a bold backdrop use a variety of unexpected colors to portray their lights and darks from an unusually composed viewpoint.
Maddox has his eye on a career in graphic design.
“The teachers are hands-on and teach a lot of techniques,” Maddox said. “I’ve been in the program since ninth grade and have developed my art skills a lot.”
Established in 1983, the School of Visual Arts and Careers is an after-school program that receives funding through grants from the V.I. Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Law Enforcement Planning Commission, as well as contributions from private foundations.
Junior and senior high school students are selected for the program based on their artistic abilities demonstrated in a portfolio.
The exhibit will stay up for an undetermined length of time, according to the board’s executive director Carol Henneman.
“There is no rush to take it down,” Henneman said. “It is so great to celebrate the students’ art. Let others come and see it; we’ll leave it open. People can just come to the office and ask to see it.”
For more information about the program or to visit the exhibit, contact the school’s director, Phebe Schwartz, at 775-2739.
