The National Art Honor Society (NAHS) opened their annual art exhibition with the theme “Dreams”, selected by the student leaders, in South’s Art Gallery on Nov. 1, and will be open through the month of December, Stephanie Fuja, Art Teacher and NAHS Sponsor, said. In the exhibition, NAHS students showcased their art pieces to the community, she said. 

NAHS is a selective honor society that students who are currently enrolled in an art class and have a 3.0 GPA or higher are invited to be a part of, Fuja explained. 

“[NAHS is] an upperclassmen program,” Fuja said. “Students [are required] to have [taken] at least two art classes prior to their junior or senior year [to qualify].”

NAHS students had from the beginning of September to the beginning of October to create a piece centered around the theme for the exhibition, Fuja explained.

 “It can be a drawing, painting, photograph, [or] a three dimensional artwork, anything that represents dreams,” Fuja said.

Student curators, NAHS students who choose the art pieces and lay out the exhibition, order the created pieces by how they connect to one another by meaning, color, aesthetic, or size, senior Zander Brandt, Main Curator of the NAHS exhibition, said. He loved seeing how all the pieces interconnect while curating the show.

“I love the idea of having art cohesively in one room together because some pieces really speak to each other, even if they [are in] no way planned together,” Brandt said.

All NAHS students have their own way of figuring out what kind of artwork they would like to create, Brandt said.

“[Last year], my piece was based off of a poem I read on [a] blog,” Brandt said. “I plan out my pieces very intricately. Everything in my drawings have a meaning to it, which is something unique to my art.”

For NAHS member senior Cecilia Beck, the concept of the theme was hard to conceptualize, so it took [time for her] to work out an idea.

“I was lost on ideas for a while, [so] I decided to work with something that was more of a surrealist style, instead of something that had a concept that related directly to dreams,” Beck said.

In additon to choosing an idea, Brandt stressed the importance of time management when working on  pieces. He splits up his time when working on his different pieces, as spending too much time at once can cause creative burnout, a problem many NAHS students struggle with, he said.

NAHS has benefits such as connecting students with their community, not only through the exhibition, but also through service projects they do, Brandt emphasized.

“I have a connection to [NAHS] because I love service-based art,” Brandt said. “I think art in a community is a very strong thing, [and] that really spoke to me.”