AP Art of the Week
Spotlight on Artist Abigail Jones
Welcome to The Elective’s digital art museum, dedicated to the incredible work of AP Arts students. This week we feature a mixed-media work made by Abigail Jones from Barbara Ingram School for the Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland.
Welcome to The Elective’s digital art museum, dedicated to the incredible work of AP Arts students. Each week we highlight a work or series created in one of the AP Arts concentrations—AP 2-D Art and Design, 3-D Art and Design, and AP Drawing (the AP Program also offers Art History and Music Theory)—as well as a statement from the artist (and, occasionally, their teacher).
From the first cave paintings to contemporary breakthroughs in virtually reality, art, in all its forms, has been a crucial way for people to process, make sense of, comment on, and grapple with the world around them. In 2020, there is a lot to process and grapple with—and AP Art students have risen to the challenge. The work many of them submitted in their final portfolios is explicitly of the moment, from commentary on the covid-19 pandemic to the celebration of people of color to the nature of heroism in perilous times.
The work is often challenging and provocative but always insightful, inspiring, and expansive.
This week we feature a mixed-media work made by Abigail Jones from Barbara Ingram School for the Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland.
Here’s Abigail’s statement on the work:
“At my school, we all come together to put on a musical every year. Whether it is acting, singing, dancing, creating props, or playing an instrument, every student has their own role. Along with the musical we are also involved with a community parade. The senior artists are in front of our group wearing giant heads inspired by musical characters.
“To create our giant heads, we all started with a cardboard box, and that's where we parted ways. I don't think two people in the whole group created their heads the same way.
To make mine, Lurch from The Addams Family, I cut out a profile of my character's face from cardboard. Then I used cardboard strips to build up the face and used toilet paper rolls to create the pointy cheekbones. Later, I used pieces of textured paper to smooth out the face. After spray-painting the hair black and the face in one gray color, I used acrylic paint to define and shade the face. The most difficult part was making it wearable and comfortable. I glued foam inside the head and created shoulder pads, then covered it in cardboard matching the rest of the face.”
And here are a few other works from Abigail’s portfolio:
Forensic photography portrays the placement of physical evidence and preserves the crime scene.
DNA phenotyping uses DNA to reconstruct faces. Measurements were used to recreate my face, then I wrapped stoneware clay around an armature and modeled the sculpture after myself then glazed.
An abstract human form that represents anxiety and emotional conflict, carved from a casted plaster block.
Student statements are lightly edited for length and clarity.
