By Lillian Kiehner

Staff Writer

Art 3 may seem like a typical art room where there are are paint brushes, canvases, colored pencils, and charcoal sticks.

Mr. David Hopkins gave some leniency to his students when he decided it would be best to agree on a project with them.

The semester started off with a controversial topic-their thoughts on current issues in the world.

The project was to pick a controversial topic that speaks to the students and portray it through art.

“We pretty much discussed the idea [of a social issues project] with the students,” said Hopkins. “We discussed what has and hasn’t been done before and what we’ve seen on the TV and news.”

Senior Trent Moyer spoke about his topic, sexual abuse in the Catholic Churches, mainly at the Vatican.

“I hope to bring a voice to the victims, it shouldn’t happen to anyone,” Moyer said. “If it happens to you, it puts you into almost like a mental prison.”

Moyer went on to explain what he plans on adding to his final piece.

“The background is going to be like a child’s picture of the sky, and the black outline of the Vatican will show the mental imprisonment within the whole situation,” said Moyer.

“It’s a way to start off the semester,” said Hopkins. “It kind of gets them going.”.

Senior Carlie Pearson is doing a bigger piece with an even bigger topic. She chose the topic of violence, not narrowing it down to one subtopic.

“It’s a huge fear that everyone has,” Pearson said. “The more of a minority you are the more you’re afraid of it.”

“I wanted to do something that everyone could see as they walk around, so I was thinking of a wall with street in the background, but the focus is mainly on the wall.” said Pearson. “On the wall will be a bloody handprint so it will put you into that place of ‘What is going on here, what happened here?’ I feel like anybody could walk down the street and see that.”

Hopkins has high hopes for the feedback from the artist’s audiences.

“Acknowledgement mainly. Acknowledgement of the student’s work, acknowledgment of the social issues that are there,” said Hopkins. “Hopefully the acknowledgements are positive.”.

Both Pearson and Moyer really enjoyed this idea for their first prompt, and both hope to bring light to the heavy situations that are going on the the world.