We are part of The Trust Project.
WILLMAR — Ruth Navarro-Garcia’s interest in art started with trash.
“I would grab little pieces of trash, like plastic bottles, and create stuff out of it when I was younger,” she said. “I loved to color, too.”
For Carter Bastin, his art interest began with “the usual doodles in elementary school.”
Navarro-Garcia, 18, and Carter Bastin, 17, both seniors at Willmar Senior High School, won best-in-show awards at the regional Minnesota State High School League art show.
The state competition is later this month.
ADVERTISEMENT
Their works are on display in the school’s commons area.
Bastin’s digital work, called “Urban,” depicts a woman from the back, her blond hair ruffled by a breeze. She’s looking out over a gritty cityscape in muted gray, brown and blue.
Navarro-Garcia’s ceramic sculpture is called “I’m different” and has delicate butterflies mounted on a heavy base. One is larger and more colorful. “The bigger butterfly is a unique person and the other butterflies are the same; they don’t stand out,” she said.
Their teacher, Jessalyn Canavan, said she enjoyed hearing the comments when she dropped off the pieces at the competition — “watching other kids stop or the professor from (Alexandria Technical and Community College) stop and say, 'wow.'”
Both students credited Canavan’s ninth-grade art class for giving them direction.
As a freshman, Bastin drew on paper, but when he was a junior in hybrid learning, he started working with drawing on a screen with a stylus.
Navarro-Garcia said she had a ceramics class in middle school but “something different happened when I came here,” she said. “I started to fall in love with clay more.”
Navarro-Garcia said she likes to depict a mix of nature and the abstract in her pieces. She has also made cups and plates, but hasn’t sold her work yet.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I’ve got a lot to learn about the business side of art,” she said.
Both students plan to attend Ridgewater College after they graduate.
Bastin plans to study to become an electrician and hopes art will become his job at some point. “I’ll do art on the side until that kicks off,” he said.
Navarro-Garcia said she plans to become a massage therapist. Her future plan is to be able to save her money to go to a bigger college to study art “and have a business on the side where I sell pottery.”
Making the grade
Navarro-Garcia, Bastin and other Advanced Placement art students have been preparing to submit their projects for their Advanced Placement tests.
Students are given a question to answer or a theme to depict in their art. They also submit a collection of their five best pieces.
Bastin’s question was “How would fashion and architecture look in the future?” He developed digital drawings of rich cityscapes and some “grungy” scenes to illustrate his vision, he said.
Navarro-Garcia was given the theme of “seasons.” Last week, she was working on a sculpture of delicate snowflakes suspended from an arch and planning to glaze a piece featuring fall leaves.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Advanced Placement students were required to write about their question or theme, too.
“They want to know that you can act like an artist, but also think like an artist,” Canavan said.
