Students Paint for C-120 and Hopkins Junior High

By: Staff Writer Amber Lee

Junior Michelle Gore and Senior Prerika Chawla have been working on paintings for MSJ’s C-120. Gore also finished a mural on September 27 for the renovated room M2 at Hopkins Junior High.

Currently, Gore and Chawla are each painting a mural as decoration for C-120. The school finished remodeling C-120 in March 2015, and Principal Zack Larsen asked Art Teacher Edie Christensen if her AP Studio Art students could contribute art to the room after it was remodeled. Each student submitted a design, and the school administration chose Chawla’s and Gore’s layouts for the final paintings.

“I was particularly interested, because I always wanted to make a painting that would allow me to leave my mark on the school after I graduated,” Chawla said about her design submission.

The two students started the art pieces at the end of last school year and continued to work on them throughout the summer and into the current school year. Gore’s painting blends together the school campus and Mission Creek, while Chawla’s painting includes the MSJ bell tower in front Mission Peak. Chawla said, “I wanted a design that would go well with the rest of C-120, and I just wanted to depict a calm setting with representations of our school and Fremont.” Once the artists finish the paintings, the art will be hung up on either side of the stage to beautify C-120.

Additionally, Hopkins administration asked Larsen and Christensen if any AP Art students wanted to do a piece of art for Hopkins’s renovated multi-use room called the Hawk’s Nest. Gore volunteered to paint a mural depicting a hawk, the Hopkins mascot, with a background of green, the school’s color. The painting was put up in the remodeled classroom during the first week of October.

“With the mural, I really wanted to convey the school spirit with the hawk. I think it represents how the students of Hopkins can soar above their expectations,” Gore said.

The renovation project, finished in March 2015, was funded by FUSD, the Parent-Faculty Association, and the Hopkins Associated Student Body. The remodeled room at Hopkins has a flexible learning environment with technology resources such as flat-screen televisions and computers for students to use. Teachers can sign up to use the Hawk’s Nest during class periods on a Google Docs schedule.

Besides Gore’s painting, the Nest also features art by the Hopkins student body. Hopkins Art Teacher Lynne Ginsberg organized a contest during the 2014-15 school year for student art submissions with themes about Hopkins.

“Last year when we finished the renovations for the Hawk’s Nest, our flexible learning environment at Hopkins, we decided that for one of the final touches on it we would have some student artwork that met with our theme of calling it the nest. And so we had the school-wide contest and we had fifteen or so different pieces of artwork that were submitted that we used to decorate the Nest, and now that is one of my favorite features of all the technology and new things in there. The student artwork really brings the space to life,” Brown concluded.