High school students with ink-stained fingers color inside black and white lines and draw vibrant patterns at the National Art Honor Society induction.
On Jan. 22, 22 Upper School students were inducted into the school’s first chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS). The society was co-founded by seniors Christina Fuleihan and Sarah Balaschak and junior Emma Cohn.
“I think that it was just the right time to start NAHS,” Fuleihan said. “We have such a great [creative] arts program, but sometimes it gets overlooked because it’s not a major part of our core curriculum.”
NAHS gives students who are passionate about art but have no time to fit it into their class schedules an opportunity to work on community projects with peers who share a common interest.
Both Fuleihan and Cohn have been taking art since their first year at Trinity.
“I’ve taken at least one art class every year since the 7th grade,” Fuleihan said. “But I’ve been an ‘artist’ since my first stick figures in kindergarten.”
Fuleihan has taken her interest in art and broadened it to community projects like Chalk Fest, where artists are given a block of space on a sidewalk and use that as their canvas to create scenes, portraits or patterns.
Balaschak has been taking art classes every year since her freshman year, but she has always been interested in the subject.
“When I was in middle school, I would stay after and participate in our school’s program with the Morse Museum,” Balaschak said. “At my old school, there was only drawing and painting, so it was freeing to explore other forms of art.”
The society is similar to Art Club, except it has different members and is part of the national organization. For a student to be an eligible member of the honor society, he or she is required to take at least one high school art class and participate in a school art project during the year.
The first project that they’re working on is called the Memory Project, a service project where the chapter members work with an orphanage in Paraguay.
“The members create portrait drawings and paintings from provided photos and then mail them to the kids,” art teacher Irina Ashcraft said. “These serve as something like yearbook photos since they don’t have many childhood images of themselves as they grow up.”
Cohn wanted to start an honor society for art because she thought that the creative arts shared the same value as academics.
“I think that art is just as important as any other subject we take in school,” Cohn said. “I wanted to show that artists should be respected just as much as the members of any other honor society.”
Although it was co-founded by the three students, the concept was originally Cohn’s idea. She brought it to Ashcraft’s attention at the end of the 2014 school year, and the NAHS took off from there. Fuleihan, Balaschak and Cohn spent the entire first semester getting the society up and running, leading up to the moment when the NAHS became an official chapter in early December.
“It’s taken months to get the message out there that we were trying to found a chapter, send in the application and do all the work planning the induction ceremony,” Cohn said.
The three officers were uncertain about the turnout of new members, but were happily surprised to find that the organization had attracted many people so early in its journey.
With Fuleihan and Balaschak graduating in the upcoming spring, Cohn is taking on the responsibility of maintaining the status as well as striving to make improvements for the NAHS. She wishes the organization to be one where artists can use their skills for the benefit of others, and she will continue to search for new project ideas. Cohn, although passionate about art, does not think that she will pursue it as a major in college, but will continue to draw and paint in her free time.
“At this point, art has become a necessity in my life that I couldn’t stop pursuing even if I tried,” Cohn said.
On the other hand, Balaschak plans to bring her talents to her major and future career. She plans to major in Industrial Design, which focuses on coming up with images for new products.
“It can vary to the next iPhone or even a new package of Cheetos,” Balaschak said.
The three co-founders are all very passionate about the creative arts and hope to bring their excitement to the community.
“Art is the best medium to express yourself,” Fuleihan said. “It just lets you create and put yourself out there and allows you to take a break from the stress of other classes.”
