Back to the classics…
Lawrence High Schools Visual Arts Instructor Wendy Leet Vertacnik clearly demonstrated how a classically-rooted curriculum, delivered in a focused manner can produce unbelievable bounty within the studio. This laser-like convergence was clearly evident in Mrs. Vertacnik’s devoted teaching, her students disciplined work ethic and visible within the powerful contents of her students portfolio’s.
MIAD should be proud to have such a good relationship with LHS and their substantial visual arts program. These young midwestern artist’s worked voraciously toward achieving excellence in every studio session that I had the pleasure to observe. Lawrence High School is located just beyond the reach of the University of Kansas in a community that was once leveled by fire and the destructive path of the American Civil War; profound national history has been created there.
It was a pleasure engaging Mrs. Veratcnik’s portfolio class into the immense amount of work and drawing required by Project Identity. These students quickly embraced the rotoscoping process and applied their advanced drawing skills producing hundreds of images for the collaboration. LHS and MIAD share several alumni, and I truly hope that our institutions can continue to work in tandem in the future, helping to nurture the young creative passion that dwells in both places.
From where the West began,
James Barany
Associate Professor of Foundations
MIAD
jbarany@miad.edu
Nice pictures!
I enjoyed working with the photos a lot.
Thank you for coming.
P.S: you said “Lawrence High School is located just beyond the reach of Kansas State University”, but KSU is located in Manhattan, KS. Lawrence is home to University of Kansas (KU), not KSU.
Ooops! Nice catch on the KSU error, I just fixed it – thanks for the edit. It was a pleasure to work with all of you as well at LHS, just keep doing what you’re doing there, it’s all good.