Art is the show

Published 12:00 am Friday, May 26, 2000

Outside Austin High School after Thursday’s Art Assembly, a mom was enthusiastic, impressed and confused.

Friday, May 26, 2000

Outside Austin High School after Thursday’s Art Assembly, a mom was enthusiastic, impressed and confused.

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"I’ll have to get my son to explain it all when he gets home," she said.

The sixth annual AHS Art Assembly was loud, proud, beautiful and somewhat disturbing. The AHS students made the point that art is many things loud and clear.

If graduation ceremonies were conducted with the same joy and sense of showmanship, everyone in town would be there.

The AHS art department presented an hour and a half program that was part award program, part art show and part MTV. Art teacher Bruce Loeschen was the master of ceremonies, assisted by fellow art teachers Andy Stutesman and Heidi Voz.

Loeschen first reminded the student body they had through Sunday to check out the student art show – the ninth annual – located next-door to the permanent art gallery at OakPark Mall. He thanked the sponsors, the judges who volunteered their time, and the students most of all.

Then it was showtime.

Artists of the week were honored, each stepping up to a small platform in the center of the stage as his or her name was called.

Then categories for the art show were announced; Student Choice, Best of Category and Award of Excellence recipients were named and their artwork displayed on a huge screen on the auditorium stage.

Several names occurred again and again as the awards were handed out: Becky Decker, Micah Ofstedahl, Catt Inthisane, Haley Arens, Rory Ellegard, Rob Pflaum, Mike Toso … there were many repeat winners.

But in the end, after all the awards were given out and all seven of the senior videos were watched, it came down to two.

Ellegard and Ofstedahl.

One of them, Ellegard, was honored for his service and commitment to the school’s art department and his pursuit of excellence in art. However, it was Ofstedahl who was given the coveted AHS art title of "Artist of the Year."

Ofstedahl’s video was one of the most thoughtful, professional and disturbing of the senior videos. He started with a poem, images of an eye, clouds. Then it was people marching, footage of Adolf Hitler and what looked like the Gulf War. A many-paned window appeared and reappeared, once with red seeping around it, then again and again at the end of the video. Each time another pane would break in perfect time with the music. The song "Goodbye Cruel World" played. There were shots of Ofstedahl’s art, a cemetery, the Middle East. Then the window was hanging crooked, all its windows broken and shattered.

Quiet.

It was a moment before the enthusiastic applause filled the auditorium again.

"Thank you, students, for enriching our lives," Loeschen told the graduating artists.

"Thank you, teachers, for letting me grow up in the art department," one of the graduating artists said in her video.

This year the art students raised a record $4,000. Half of that goes to scholarships, with the biggest award going to Ofstedahl, the second largest to Ellegard, and the remainder being split among the other senior candidates.