Freshman Shruti Pritmani advanced to state and won a state medal for her work “Putting On A Mask” in the 2023 Visual Arts Scholastic Event. VASE is a competition held every year in Texas to recognize distinguished artists across regions.
Shruti Pritmani
Freshman Shruti Pritmani has immersed herself in a world of color and imagination for as long as she can remember. Her days are filled with canvases, tubes of paint and competitions as she has honed her skills since she was four years old.
During her time in the art program at CHS9, she competed in the regional VASE competition where she earned a state medal with her work “Putting on a Mask.”
How would you describe the interview portion of the State VASE process?
I wasn’t nervous. I was pretty comfortable and I thought it was fun. I had a really nice conversation with my judge and it went well.
What inspired this piece?
I showed how I would show myself on a social media platform which I think multiple people would relate with, not just me that social media would make you want to alter your appearance. That’s why in the artwork, I’m putting on makeup, doing my hair and I’m also on my phone so it’s just showing the online world. I could relate to it a lot. I think that my appearance really affects the way I think and if I look bad, then I would not feel like myself but if I look better, I would definitely feel more like myself. I am really into realism, I want to make my work as realistic as possible and make it look as much as me. Charcoal is a black and white medium so I chose to do it on a black paper in all black and white. If there were multiple colors, I feel like the meaning would deviate from what I wanted to show. In black and white, everything looks the same and you’re more focused on the details rather than the colors.
What are you trying to showcase using your art?
I wanted to show that I’m at such a young age and I’m already influenced by social media especially because I started getting on social media right when COVID hit. When I was on my phone all the time, that had a really big impact on the way I thought of the online world. My brainstorming process because with so many sketches, choosing the right one is the most important thing. For this specific project, we were given multiple themes or prompts that we could choose from. Based on the theme I chose, I made multiple sketches of my face doing multiple actions and seeing which would give a better meaning and which one I would think would reflect my personal experience more.
What was an unexpected obstacle when creating this piece?
We had some weather issues during this time and we had a couple of days off from school so I was not able to work on my artwork at all before VASE. Maybe two days before, I had to cram half of the work process in and I definitely did not think I would have to be working that much within two days.
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Emily Chang: Charismatic
Coppell High School senior Emily Chang is the Senior Class president and is an active member in HOSA. CHS students voted on the 19 most influential seniors in the graduating class of 2023.
Walking into the Dallas Market Center, Coppell High School senior Emily Chang felt a sense of pride and joy wash over her. From selecting the potential themes to coordinating details and decorations, Chang poured her heart and soul into planning the perfect prom for the class of 2023.
The result was a testament to her and the Senior Class officers’ hard work and dedication for tireless months on end.
Besides serving as senior class president, Chang was HOSA president in her junior year and has been vice president of the Future Medical Students organization for the past three years. But it is not competition results or awards that gives Chang the sense of pride when looking back on her time serving; it is the welcoming environment she has helped nurture.
“I think I brought HOSA together – I made it a really fun environment, not just a competition, but a safe space where you can make friends and get to know a lot of other people,” Chang said. “That’s something that’s really important, having good relationships with other people and making sure other people feel valued, that is really what makes people influential and valuable to people. It’s not really what you do. Anyone can go and win a competition and perform really well academically, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with their character, which I think is the most important.”
Despite an impressive resume carrying her to major in health and human sciences at the University of Southern California, Chang’s motivations for putting herself out there when running for Senior Class president were not just to gain a new skill set or play a key role in the creation of memories for the seniors. Her motivations date back to her childhood.
“When I was growing up, I felt like I didn’t see a lot of representation and I didn’t feel like I could be multiple things at once,” Chang said. “‘Duality’ really represents what I stand for. You can go out and have fun all the time, but you can also do really well academically. You can be really successful and do so many things, but at the same time you can be a very genuine person and not lose your sense of character. I hope that people see me not just as successful or someone who is going to a good college and did all these things, but I hope people remember me for what my character is.”
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