As seniors are preparing themselves for college, we have a few of our very own East Grand Rapids Pioneers working on art portfolios. The class is a portfolio preparation taught by Mr. Speizg where students who are interested in the arts and see themselves at the schools of art and design can begin to build their art portfolios to display their wide range of talent. Art spans from pottery and tangible 3D objects to watercolors and pastels.

One student from this portfolio preparation class is Lilly Vydareny ‘23, who is passionate about art and loves the class.

“It’s a space where seniors who are thinking about going into art have a space just to work on their specific art portfolio,” Vydareny says.

One thing that was a bit of a struggle for her in this class was continuously working at the beginning of the year. Just trying to build a portfolio with a comprehensive arrangement of artwork can be somewhat challenging in a given amount of time. As Mr. Speizg was a big help to her and was able to guide her. It took a lot of stress off her shoulders and allowed the students to be creative and allow more individuality. 

“This class just allowed me to be creative and express myself,” Vydareny said. 

Vydareny took about three weeks to work on a 3D clay mask, and it turned out to be one of her most proud works. 

Another student from this portfolio preparation class is Sylvie Devries ‘23.

“This is a class where you can work and build up your portfolio to get into art colleges or if you just want to work independently. Building up the portfolio is just a way to show your artwork to different colleges to try to get admitted to schools like SCAD or CCS,” Devries said.

She has worked hard on many different pieces of art like pottery, oil pastels, watercolors, or any art you can imagine. The goal is to create a portfolio that encapsulates you and your work so these colleges know what you are made out of.

“I liked this class because I can just work on my own thing. I didn’t find anything difficult about the class or the work, but figuring out what you want your portfolio to be and what you want to provide to these colleges,” Devries said.

Devries loves all the different aspects of the class.

“Drypoint print which is tryptic, this means there are 3 different parts of it and they are all different flowers my mom, my sister, and I all love,” Devries said.

This piece took her a lot of time and it’s very special to her as it kind of connects her family and she took a lot of time and put in a bunch of work.

The end goal for these portfolios is to be able to display their wide range of talent to these art and design schools to help themselves get accepted and admitted into the schools in which they want to study at. These portfolios are fairly different in the sense of creativity where the point is that they stand out from others. 

Some of the most prestigious art schools in the United States are Brown University, Rhode Island school of design, School of the art institute of Chicago, Columbus college of art and design, and Parsons school of design. Your GPA greatly affects your chances of getting into these schools, it also greatly depends on your portfolio and what works of art you can display.