In light of Ernest Righetti High School’s cancellations of both its annual Student Art Show and Film Festival earlier this year, teachers and students in the school’s visual arts department teamed up to create a new website, righettivisualarts.org, in order to showcase student artwork online.
The site includes works of various media, including drawing, painting, ceramics, photography, and film, created by freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior students throughout the 2019-20 school year. In addition to works created by students before the school’s closure in March, the online exhibition also features art created as direct responses to the coronavirus pandemic, in a category titled Art During COVID-19.
“The world is full of art, it is our job to harness it for self-expression,” Ginger Grizzanti, a freshman art student at Righetti, said in a press release.
Grizzanti’s page on the website features 14 of her artworks, along with an artist statement. Her medium of choice is watercolor, she explained in the statement, and most of her paintings are inspired by dreams and the subconscious. Grizzanti is one of several featured student artists, and organizers of the exhibit include Righetti teachers Melissa Johnson (art), Jacob Gustafson (film and journalism), Elesa Carlson (art and drama), and Kizen Sugano (music and photography).
“Righetti High School has, for decades, showcased the talent of the students in the fine arts classes by holding an art exhibition,” Johnson said in the release. “In order to adjust to the current circumstances, the visual arts department is curating an online stay-at-home option.
“Often in times of difficulty and challenge, we are pushed out of our comfort zone,” she added. “But this can be an opportunity for growth and discovery.”
This article appears in Jun 11-18, 2020.