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Serious Artists with Enormous Amounts of Potential

For Nicole DiStasio of Clinton, being an artist is very much of a family affair.

DiStasio, who attends high school in Middletown, remembers beginning to see herself as an artist when she was very, very young after seeing anime characters on television and being struck by a desire to create them herself. She started drawing, and drawing, and drawing some more. Her mother loved her work, admired her work ethic, and happened to know someone, through work, who gave art lessons. DiStasio started taking lessons and that teacher introduced her to other teachers and new opportunities. Now the work DiStasio does is often centered on her family: her mother’s hat from the time her mother was a staff sergeant in the Army; a portrait of her grandfather, or “pappa,” who also served in the military; another portrait of her grandmother, or “nana,” before her recent slide in dementia.

“For me, the support of my family has been so important,” says DiStasio, who is among the first place winners in the Shoreline Arts Alliance Future Choices 2016 Annual Juried High School Art Competition and Exhibition. “If you don’t have parents on your side it can be hard. Parents can hold you back.”

Eric Dillner, the executive director of the Shoreline Arts Alliance, a non-profit arts and culture organization based in Guilford, says the annual student competition and exhibition has many goals. He said it helps the students begin to understand themselves as artists. It helps them identify other members of their tribe. And, he said, he hopes the event will help parents see their children as serious artists with enormous amounts of potential.

“Sometimes this helps parents, for the first time, to see something beyond a kid just playing around with paint or clay,” he says. He remembers the first time his parents saw him sing opera at the New York City Opera. “That was a huge moment. I will never forget it. And, in the same way, I’m hoping these parents can get a glimpse of what these students can do.”

The work of the artists will be on view at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, Sill House Gallery, 84 Lyme Street, Old Lyme (right off of I-95 and just a few minutes from the Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River) through Tuesday, March 8, from Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The jurors for 2016 were artist/art teachers Alice Chittenden and Rick Lacy and motion graphics artist and professional video editor Christian Simmons.

Earning it

Drew Montgomery, 17, a junior at Daniel Hand High School in Madison, said he got his start as a photographer when, about four or five years ago, his parents gave him some of their old film cameras from college. He then traded that with a friend for a Canon XTi DSLR digital camera. He then started shooting.

“I pretty much fell in love with it,” he says of photography.

And so he started saving his money. Three years later, he traded up to a Canon EOS 5D, a professional-level camera often considered among the best in the field. He trained himself, by taking hundreds of pictures, reading photography and art magazines, and by viewing YouTube videos. He says he trained his eye by looking at the work of other photographers, including those featured in National Geographic and Life magazine. He uses Adobe Lightroom software to organize, edit, and share his photography.

And he kept saving up his money.

Last Thanksgiving he applied that money toward what he calls a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Iceland, a location he picked because he knew it would afford spectacular opportunities for photography.

“I always wanted to go. For a photographer, that is the place to be,” he says.

One of his prize winning entries in the Shoreline Arts Alliance contest is of a black sand beach in Vik, Iceland. Another entry shows a waterfall in Iceland. He says it was worth it, saving all that money for both the camera and the trip.

“I don’t like being given something. It means a lot more when you earn it,” he says.

From horse play to best in show

Adriana Wimler says, like many young girls, she collected model horses when she was younger. She was fascinated by their expressions and their movements, captured as a moment in time.

When she was eight, she started creating her own sculptures with clay she baked in the oven, hoping to recreate those expressions and movements. At the time, she was happy with her work. And then she started exploring the work of other sculptors and decided she wanted to go further.

In particular, she started studying the work of Beth Cavener Stichter, an artist from Montana who creates a focus on human psychology “articulated through animal and human forms,” according to the Stichter’s website.

Wimler, who won best in show for her sculptures of a wolf and a horse, is only a sophomore at Coginchaug Regional High School in Durham, and she says she is looking forward to continuing to explore different themes through her art as she gets older.

Getting Closer to the Truth

Matt Littlefield, Eli Griswald, Oliver Falla, Shawn Conroy, and Raj Patel were intrigued by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In one version the myth, Theseus makes his way through a labyrinth with the help of some advice given to him by a friend, and, after a pitched and bloody battle he slays the beastly Minotaur and chops off its head. Then Theseus rescues some captives and safely makes his way back out of the labyrinth, with the help of a ball of string given to him by an admirer.

As the story usually goes, this event in the life of Theseus has a happy ending, says Littlefield, who lives in Lyme. But his group, following a brainstorming session for a project at the Williams School where they all go to school, had something else in mind.

“The Greek myth, with the maze, and getting through the maze, reminded us of addiction,” says Falla, who lives in East Lyme.

After more discussion, they decided their project, a video that employs claymation, live action, and other elements, would not have a happy ending. Two of the boys in the group said they had seen the ravaging effects of addiction firsthand and that this seemed like a more appropriate ending.

The trip through the maze became a trip through the mind of someone struggling with addiction, says Littlefield. Littlefield, in addition to working on production elements, posed as the actor in the live action segments. Falla said the group, during their initial brainstorming sessions, had grand plans and ideas. And then they realized that they had only limited time and resources. So they got creative. In addition to the Greek myth, they incorporated some ideas from the movie Inception, and some observations from their own lives.

In addition to Littlefield, two claymation characters star in the video as well. There is a larger claymation guy, and a smaller claymation guy.

“The larger claymation guy crushes the smaller claymation guy, which in the end, means he is crushing himself,” says Littlefield.

In the final scene, the team used a green screen to create the illusion of being able to see into the head of the character being played by Littlefield.

“You can see into his head and you can see that addiction has won,” says Littlefield.

Littlefield, Falla, and Griswald, also of Lyme, garnered first place in the category of video/digital animation. While Conroy of New London and Patel of Norwich aren’t listed because their towns aren’t in the Shoreline Arts Alliance territory, Littlefield, Falla, and Griswald asked that they be given credit as well.

Falla said the entire project was fascinating, particularly the process of winnowing down ideas to get to the final work of art.

Griswald agreed.

“You quickly realize you have a timetable, and that you can only do so much, but in the end, that made it better,” he says. “You have to do all the planning, all of the storyboarding, and all of the rest of it. But in the end, you have to be realistic. Break it down, do what you can do.”

“And don’t let that get you down,” says Littlefield. “Sure, there will be things you can’t do. But you just have to keep moving forward.”

Griswald offered one more piece of advice for aspiring videographers.

“Don’t be too literal,” he says. “Leave some space for interpretation and the viewer’s imagination.”

“Sometimes when it’s not entirely realistic,” says Littlefield, “it’s closer to the truth.”