The Chamblee Art Department held its annual art showcase on Tuesday (March 28) and displayed a wide array of some of the best art Chamblee students had to offer. Students of drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography at Chamblee were able to exhibit their pieces and put them up for sale in a newly-formed Chamblee Art tradition, and one that benefits everyone involved.

“We started last year working in tandem with our booster club to make this our big annual fundraiser, but we didn’t want it to be solely on our students artwork alone– we wanted our students to be able to be part of the fundraising, so we do a 60-40 split with them where they get 60% and we get 40%, which is better than a gallery, which is the other way around,” said art teacher Kimberly Landers.

The artists and teachers worked together to price the pieces to accurately reflect the time put into the piece, the materials used, and the craftsmanship of the piece, while keeping the target audience and profits in mind. Even with these factors, the pieces generally sold for much less than art in other shows or galleries.

“There’s art out there that I would have hanging in my house, no problem, and the prices, when you think about that, are really good because you can’t get art that good at a gallery or festival for those kinds of prices. It’s nice for them to see people loving their art that much,” said Landers.

Though this is only the second year the department has hosted an in-person showcase, the event has deeper roots than that.

“So this is our second one since Ms. Bell, Ms. Nguyen, and I have all been here together, but they’ve been having art shows for a while. I’m not sure how long, but the past few years we’d been having virtual shows, so last year was the first one of our new era,” said Landers.

The showcase went on to raise around $10,000 for the Chamblee Art Department, a profit made possible by the hard work put in by both the artists and the organizers behind the event.

“It was slightly grueling. We set up the panels the day before, [starting from] first period. We laid stuff out against the walls by color, and then we started picking out larger pieces to kind of anchor the center of each panel. [We] scurried around for six periods trying to get it all up,” said Landers. “It was a lot of walking, though– I walked nine miles that day. Between putting up the art and the opening, I got my steps in.”

The showcase not only offers a great opportunity for the artists to turn a profit, but it also provides a chance for the students to gain exposure.

“Having your art exhibited, in my opinion, is one of the best parts of being an artist because you get to show off this large part of what makes you who you are and see other people enjoy [your work]. It’s just really cool to see your artwork on a wall with a bunch of other great artwork,” said artist Liliana Sandfort (‘24). 

Sandfort was able to put multiple pieces up for sale at the art show in a variety of different mediums.

“I have my oil painting on wood titled Symphonic Memory, I have a colored pencil drawing on paper titled Waiting to Leave. I have a couple collage paintings in there,” said Sandfort.

Interestingly enough for a piece in a showcase, viewing other works of art inspired Sandfort’s piece Waiting to Leave.

“It’s about my childhood memories of going to the Smithsonian Art Museum, so it’s a lot about the experience of wonder at seeing the fossils and I wanted to create a very simple composition that displayed the very simple way that a child looks at life,” said Sandfort. “I wanted the colors to be very vibrant and dreamlike and I did that with a lot of vibrant colors and very clearly separating the forms in the composition.”

Like Sandfort, Frida Nieves (‘25) also drew on personal experience to create one of her pieces, Boriqua Superheroe. 

“It’s about my Hispanic heritage and it placed in the state, so now I’m going to Nashville– it’s a cool one,” said Nieves. “The prompt was ‘Show Your Voice’ and it has a mouth and a film roll, and on the film roll there’s different cultural images, like food, music, and family. There’s also some more Puerto Rican symbolism, like a monument from Puerto Rico called “El Morro” in the back [with] coqui frogs all around it.”

Photographer Theo Gamba (‘25) also made sure to introduce next-level detail and thought processes into their work.

“I have one photo and it’s a double exposure, so one’s red and one’s blue and they’re layered on top of each other,” said Gamba. “It was part of a new techniques project that I had to do [last semester]. I really wanted to see if I could make a piece [that drew inspiration from] putting on 3-D glasses in a movie theater: you would see one image in the red and one image in the blue, and I think it came out well.”

As a photographer, Gamba enjoyed the variety of art forms the showcase displayed and the exposure to the other pieces it provided.

“I like how you get to see all the other art classes and what they’ve been working on all year, [since] we are pulling from earlier [projects]. My piece is pulled from last semester, and I know some other people’s are as well, so it’s not just the latest projects, it’s everything. I also think it’s a good chance for the photography students to see the drawing students and for the drawing students to see the sculptures and the paintings, and I just think it’s a good mixture of all the classes,” said Gamba.

Fellow artist Peirong Gao (‘24) also found that the showcase provided a solid mixture of the works of different art students.

“I like that it’s one space that depicts what everyone’s been working so hard on all year,” said Gao.

Gao was able to display her hard work at the showcase as well with an oil painting titled Midnight Blur.

“One of my pieces is kind of centered around midnight rain– it’s a picture of Chinatown streets, and I just really liked painting it because I like to use a lot of warm colors, and it was more expressive than concrete,” said Gao. “Since the picture is of a rainy street, I like the reflections from the rain water and the lights.”

Artist Carol Li (‘24) was also able to contribute paintings to the showcase, and ended up displaying a total of six pieces.

“It felt good to display it, I mean I looked around and saw ‘oh there’s mine!’ and ‘there’s another one!’” said Li. “It was nice.”

Even with so many pieces on display, Li’s works still only made up a fraction of the total number of pieces in the showcase.

“I think there were like 600-something pieces. The way they did it, I think it worked out nicely. Everything was easily available to be seen,” said Li.

The exposure that Li’s and other artists’ pieces gained at the showcase allowed them to reap multiple benefits, beyond just the direct profit of sales.

“I know Margaret [McNally], I think one of her pieces was bought by the Chamblee Capitol Building and it’s going to be displayed there. Margaret also told me that someone’s mom really liked my piece and wants me to do a commission for them, so it definitely helps. Obviously if someone buys your piece, you get the majority of that money, and the rest goes to funding Chamblee Art so they can buy more supplies, which also goes back to the artists,” said Li.

In putting their art out for the public to see, not only do the artists gain experience and knowledge as well as money for themselves and the department, they also gain understanding and support within the community.

“It’s an evening for us to showcase our student talent while still teaching and learning new things through it,” said Landers. “But [it’s] also an opportunity for the community to see what we do and understand all the ‘why are you working on your art instead of your other homework?’ That’s why.”