AP Studio Art students displayed their pieces of art, Friday March 1 and Saturday afternoon March 2 at an out of school professional art gallery open to the public.

AP Studio Art teacher Dan Raedeke organized the event.

“It’s a professional gallery, and a friend of mine owns it and he’s kind enough to allow us to rent it out for a weekend,” said Raedeke.

The commercial gallery is often used to exhibit local artists. Although it usually holds contemporary works, the space is available for rental for special events, such as Ladue’s art displays.

“It’s all the AP Studio Art kids, and we all submitted some of our best artwork,” senior Grant Sachs said.

Students have been dedicating time to their art since the start of the year. Once the students felt that their art was ready to be displayed, they could submit it into the exhibition, to be viewed by the open public.

The exhibition featured many mediums for expression, including wood, ceramic, burlap, plexiglas and video stills. Regardless of the way that the ideas were presented, each artist had to go through their own a creative process.

“I started making these little twig figures, and actually stuck to them, and I got really inspired by the idea of flames,” senior Emma Riordan said. “Although there’s no red in the actual art, I find it very flame-like in just the shapes and the texture.”

Although the beginnings of her work were uncertain, Riordan is proud of her final masterpiece. Riordan titled her work “Gathering Twigs.”
After her long but rewarding process, junior Ashley Turner was similarly thrilled to see her work in a professional gallery and not in the works in an art studio. Turner titled her mixed media work on a panel, depicting another girl in the art class, “Beats”.

“The main objective of the show is to facilitate the experience of a professional gallery exhibit,” Raedeke said. “As part of that experience students are able to, if they wish, have their works for sale.”

In the real world the gallery usually takes half the profit. However, Ladue artists received all of the earnings.

Raedeke organizes an off-campus exhibit for students once every two years, meaning the next gallery is set for 2015. #