The Art Show took place in February, resulting in awards for more than 27 students from all three art divisions, including certificates for senior Zahra Ahmed and sophomores Amy Huang and Lillian Zha. The Art Sticky Project on the wall near the Performing Arts Center kicked off in February as well through art teacher Sarah Arago, who thought of the idea.

“I liked that our participation was really high,” Arago said. “I think it was probably one of the best shows, when you look at the whole picture, that we’ve [ever] had.”

The art show offered a chance for students to show off under the fresh eyes of chosen jurers such as a Dallas Museum of Art employee and a local artist. One of the 27 art students to receive a certificate for her artwork “True Distortion” was Ahmed.

“If we are working so hard on something, it’s nice to show it to everyone,” Ahmed said. “You have put so many hours into these pieces, and even if you don’t win, it’s especially gratifying to know that people are taking time to see your work.”

Ahmed won first place for her piece “True Distortion,” which she said was from reading The Picture of Dorian Grey and researching portraits of people.

“I wanted to show how there is more than meets the eye,” Ahmed said.

While participating in the Art Show, Ahmed also participated in the Art Sticky project, answering the prompt: “I know who I am, and who I may be if I choose” from Don Quixote as she thought about her future and college career.

“My [art sticky] was just a face, but it was kind of ruffed up, with really cracked lips,” Ahmed said. “It was a moment of fear, I guess, that I know I can do amazing things, but then there is always the possibility that [I] can go on the wrong path.”

Ahmed said she has loved art since she was little and said it quickly became her “thing” when she moved to Allen her sophomore year.

“Art is silent communication,” Ahmed said. “I think it’s a really powerful form of communication because you can interpret it in so many ways.”

Among Ahmed and other participants, Huang won second place in the second division for her art piece “Heartstrings.”

“We were required to put one piece in, but I put in two pieces because I felt like it was a good experience to know how to prepare a piece before a show,” Huang said. “And I think it’s valuable for college.”

From her research on hearts, Huang soon found the inspiration for her art piece. She drew a picture of a heart, and placed a harp inside of it, connecting the strings as fibers connect the heart, then she placed a person inside the heart and had them playing on these “heartstrings”.

“Our teacher asked us to merge two objects or two animals and I chose a heart and strings because I was looking at pictures of hearts, and the fibers inside kind of look like strings, so I decided to mesh it with a heart,” Huang said. “I was inspired by the similarities between the two things: harp strings and heart strings.”

Huang said she has loved art ever since she was little, and she has done several art classes, including an outside of school art class.

“I think art was a really fun thing for me as a kid. [One of my art classes now] is at this old Chinese man’s house; he’s really good at drawing, and he came from China 20 years ago,” Huang said. “He’s very good at painting, and I learned how to do still life with him for about five years.”

Huang said art is as valuable as music and sports and said she finds that the pleasure she finds in art has helped her choose art over  music and sports.

“I like how it’s a lot of self expression, but also that it has similar requirements that music and sports have,” Huang said. “You need to have discipline and you really want to be to improve because in art, your foundation of your skills will allow you to self express a lot better than if you didn’t.”

Huang also participated in the art sticky project.

“I drew a statue, and there was a chisel next to its eye, a chisel and a hammer,” Huang said. “The chisel and the hammer formed a ‘t’ and I wrote a phrase based on that and it says: ‘It’s up to me” because the theme was about self-identity. My inspiration was the idea of making yourself out of stone.”

Zha skipped Art 1, and being in Division two this year, she showed off her art work publicly for the first time and won two first place awards for her oil painting “Swans” and her rice painting “Mist,” saying that she loves art for its peacefulness.

“I’m in orchestra, I play the cello, and I suck at sports,” Zha said. “Art is less stressful.”

Zha said that she takes trips to China every year to visit family near Hong Kong, where she got her inspiration for her Chinese painting “Mist.”

“Every year I go to China, and the landscape really pretty there,” Zha said. “Chinese painting is really different, it’s a lot like watercolor, but it’s on rice paper, and you use ink and brushes, mostly ink. Rice paper is almost like tissue paper. [In rice painting] it’s not about the details, it’s about the general idea.”