Throughout the school year, Chamblee High School’s art students dedicate themselves to creating pieces in their chosen art classes, ranging from digital to physical forms. The CHS Art Show offers a way for these students’ art to be displayed to people outside of teachers and classmates. Art was up for display and available for purchase in the Fine Arts Building, and this year, the art show was held from 5:00- 7:00 PM on April 16th.

According to Ms. Kim Landers, the Introduction Art, Draw/Paint, and AP Drawing teacher, the first Art Show was supposed to be during the 2019-2020 school year. Due to the pandemic, both the 2020 and 2021 shows occurred virtually, making this year’s show the 7th Art Show held with the current CHS art teachers: Ms. Landers, Ms. Mattie Bell, and Ms. Lieu Nguyen.

Behind the scenes, the art teachers work extra hard to prepare for the show. The responsibility of preparing each piece to be sold falls onto the art teachers.

“We have to meet with our Booster Club several times and speak with the parents involved,” said Ms. Landers. “Then, we start gathering the artwork to get all of it titled and priced on a spreadsheet. We had over 700 pieces of art in the show this year, so that was a big undertaking.”

Every piece on display was chosen by Chamblee’s art teachers from all of the art classes available, ranging from drawing to photography.

“Ms. Landers will show me one of my [art] pieces and ask, ‘Do you want this to be in the art show?’ But, sometimes, she’ll just put [my art in the show],” said Keira Bassett (‘27).

One of Bassett’s pieces that was selected to be displayed in the show was Tipping Cup, which is a part of her Advanced Placement Drawing portfolio.

“[Tipping Cup] took a lot of time. I started by doing the colored pencil parts on a different piece of paper, then I cut them out and put them onto the green paper I was going to use, glued them on, and then messed around with it for a while. It fits into my suspended investigation for AP Drawing about childhood nostalgia and how trauma can affect you as a kid,” said Bassett.

The pricing for the art pieces was decided by both the art teachers and artists by determining how much effort and money was put into making the piece.

“[The Art Show] is a fundraiser for our booster club, but our students get 60% of the money. As teachers, we are asking students: ‘How many hours did you work on the piece? How much were your materials? How much do you need to inflate your price to cover your costs?’ … Typically, students will always [set their] price lower at first, but then we explain that we are not pricing for students to purchase; we’re pricing your work in a price range for adults [to purchase],” said Ms. Landers.

This year, a dress made outside of Chamblee’s art program was also on display at the art show. Anna Sallach (‘26), Katherine Thomas (‘27), and Lillian Thomas (‘27) worked to create a dress for the Technology Student Association’s Fashion Design and Technology Competition, which ended up placing third at the State competition.

“The prompt this year was Villain Era, and it had to have 3-D printed [elements] on it,” said Sallach. “We used a lot of different types of technology to make it; the smallest piece is the laser cut fabric; the flames were laser-cut the same way as engraving wood. Then, the corset was made using 3-D printed scales onto mesh.”

The dress made it a step further and advanced to the national competition, so Sallach and her teammates had to stay by the delicate dress and crown to make sure no one damaged it during the showcase.

“[The dress is] going to Nationals [this] summer, and I don’t want to spend my summer repairing it because someone touched it. We used stained glass on the earrings, crown, and heart piece, [so it’s very fragile],” said Sallach.

A few students had canvases set up and were painting during the show. Seeing students actively painting is another way for friends and family outside of the art department to experience the process of making art, such as that found in the show.

“Ms. Landers asked me to paint live this year,” said Amalee McWaters (‘26). “Certain seniors will make an art piece to donate to the school when they graduate, so Ms. Landers suggested that I start my legacy piece [at the art show]. Painting in front of all these people is a lot of pressure, but I think it’s helping me work a little faster. I’m typically a perfectionist, and I end up spending way too much time on [my art], but the pressure [of people watching me] helps me concentrate and work diligently.”

Some students took their pieces home and worked outside of class; James Alexander (‘29) found his favorite piece to be the one he spent extra time on.

“My favorite piece in the art show is my pen with the bird resting in the palm because I spent the most time going over it after the original time [spent] in class and making it better [to] refine it for the art show,” said Alexander.

The art show has become a Chamblee event that many student artists, parents, and community members look forward to each year.

“I like seeing other students work, especially from the classes that I’m not in, like drawing and painting,” said Declan Chen (‘27), a photography student. “It’s really cool to see other art forms and what projects are [created] in those classes.”