Archbishop Carroll’s Fine Arts week featured a number of new exhibitions to showcase students’ artistic abilities, and new members were inducted into the National Honors Art Society and Tri-M Music Honors Society. 

In the school cafeteria, art teachers Mrs. Carpenter, and Mr. Magenta created an exhibition for students to participate in over the duration of Fine Arts Week. The exhibition, known as the “Yayoi Kusama Obliteration Room,” is a completely white domestic space where people can place colorful stickers as a form of interactive art. The final product is supposed to look like an explosion of spontaneous color, according to Tate.org. In Carroll’s iteration, the obliteration room looked like a living room with a white wall, floor, sofa, coffee table, chair, lamps, TV console, and a television. Even the bowl of fruit and the computer on the coffee table were white. It was the job of the students to add the color. They did that by placing round purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red stickers on everything.

Students said they looked forward to more interactive art exhibitions in the future. 

“I think interactive art should be done more at Carroll because it gets the students who are not enrolled in the art program involved in some projects,” said National Art Honor Society senior Katarina Philipp. “It also draws attention to Carroll’s art program and sparks interest for students who wouldn’t have considered an art class previously.”  

National Art Honor Society and Tri-M Music Honor Society senior Evelyn Stong agreed. 

“In my opinion, interactive art should definitely be done more often,” said Stong. “I feel like it helps students to recognize the intention of the art piece from active participation as opposed to the separation one can feel from a display piece that can only be looked at but not touched. Interactive art also leaves people feeling more impactful since they have the opportunity to add to the piece and feel like creators themselves.” 

Other art exhibitions included paintings, drawings, mosaics, and pop art from students. This included National Honors Art Society senior Jasmine Nguyen, who had her artwork display on a bulletin board next to Mrs. O’Keefe’s office. Most of the colorful pieces are for Nguyen’s AP art portfolio and focus on Nguyen’s upbringing as an Vietnamese American, like one with Nguyen in a classroom, looking excited to learn, and others with food that touch on her culinary culture. Nguyen is planning to continue pursuing her talents at the Architectural Design at Pratt Institute with a major in architecture.  

“My interest in the arts sparked when I was a child, as I used to watch a lot of cartoons and anime,” said Nguyen. “The colorful images and unique styles of cartoons inspired me to create my own art. I started taking art seriously in 5th grade and practiced realism. Art helps me see life as a colorful place; which helps me to keep moving forward.”

In addition to the art showcases, Fine Arts Week featured an induction ceremony for new members of the National Honors Art Society and Tri-M Music Honors Society during Fine Arts Week. 

The new Tri-M Music Honor Society inductees included Sophia Sutton, Jenna DiGiovanni, C. Ryan Holmes, Sofia Cunicelli, William Englert, Sean Goodridge, Molly Lau, and Rose Procaccini. 

The new National  Art Honor Society inductees included Britney Pham, Arianna Hall, Caitlin McConaghy, Brooke Quigley, Gabriella Amplo, Madison Mitchell, and Giavanna Spadea. 

During the induction ceremony in the chapel, Mr. William Gennaro spoke about the school band performing the all-instrumental Mass. He spoke proudly about their contribution to the arts at Carroll through their beautiful display of music. 

Although not during Fine Arts Week, the school band got a head start on it by performing Carroll’s first-ever fully instrumental mass on Ash Wednesday that was put together in less than a week!

“I was very excited about performing in Carroll’s first-ever instrumental mass,” said Tri-M Music Honor Society member Gabriel Petrecz, a junior. “It helped show other aspects of the school’s music department. The only thing that I didn’t like was that it was planned last minute. However, everyone pulled through and it went well. As of right now, I do not know if it will be considered again in the future, but I sure hope so!”

Tri-M Music Honor Society member Ryan Holmes, a junior, agreed.

“I’d love to do another all-instrumental Mass on Ash Wednesday next year,” said Holmes. Since Ash Wednesday is one of the few deeply reflective Masses we have throughout the year, the instruments really helped everyone to reflect. One instrumental Mass a year will be perfect because we will have more than enough time to rehearse and organize.”