High School Students featured at UB

“You can create something, put it away and hide it. You can put it out there for the world to see. They will either hate it, love it, or ignore it, but at least it does not stay hidden.” – Mark Synder.

The University at Buffalo is often covered in the news for their good sports teams and academics. However, they have a huge art department that hosts many events. Right now, UB is hosting “Into the Open” — Western New Yorks’ Regional High School Art Exhibition. The event is located in The Center for the Arts building located on the University at Buffalo’s North Campus. The event can be found on the lower level of the building in room B45. Dates run from Feb. 13 to March 5.

“Into the Open” is an annual event that has been hosted by UB for over a decade. All High Schools in Western New York are invited to attend or participate in the event. Teachers are encouraged to select students’ whose art work they believe will add to the diversity of the Exhibition. Each student gets the opportunity to add about four pieces of their art into the collection — there are approximately 75 pieces in this year’s collection. A closing ceremony will be held to showcase the students’ art work and reward them for their work. There will also be an award ceremony, with the top four students winning up to 500 dollars.

The Exhibition displays a wonderful amount of openness and expression. There is no criteria to follow and no rules. The students’ are simply expected to make the best work of art they can while expressing their creativity. When you walk into the gallery you will see a large amount of mixed media pieces that are wonderfully made. The diversity of the pieces are vast. The Exhibition showcases art using oil paint, acrylic paint, ceramic, and pencil, just to name a few. There is no constant theme throughout the Exhibition. There are pieces that are very moving and sentimental. There are pieces that are funny. There are some that are random. There are self-portraits and portraits of animals. The list goes on and on, you should really get out there and see it yourself!

I had the pleasure of discussing the event with Mark Snyder, the art resource manager at the University at Buffalo. It was not hard to get Snyder to start talking about his passion for art. When discussing the importance of doing art shows Synder said that “Doing events like these is a way of reaching out and encouraging the growth for passion in the arts.” Getting teenagers involved in art can sometimes be challenging, the fear of rejection toward pieces can be scary enough to push someone in another direction. To that Snyder followed by saying “sure, being in high school and entering an art exhibition makes it a little more intimidating but we want to push the kid’s boundaries and show them the potential they have.”

Mark Synder was the only one interviewed during this event because there were no students there at the time. He gave wonder input and was able to give me event history information. On the contrary, this was unfortunate in regards to this piece as I was hoping to get outsiders perspectives on different art pieces.