PORTLAND, Maine — The Portland Public Library is hosting students' artwork at its Lewis Gallery. The “Art Class” exhibit will run until April 21, showcasing student artwork from all four public high schools in Portland: Portland High School, Deering High School, Casco Bay High School, and Portland Arts and Technology High School (PATHS).
The exhibit is curated by Portland High School student Hannah Caron as part of her internship with the library.
Students attending these schools were encouraged to submit work to be displayed in the show with the optional theme of “identity.”
A representative from the Portland Public Library said they are “honored to be hosting this exhibition, which gives students the rare opportunity to publicly display their artwork in their own community. We hope that it will encourage students to continue pursuing and creating art beyond the classroom.”
“We love to support local students and the art gallery is another way we can be a resource," Rachael Harkness, the library’s gallery and special programs coordinator, said. "The Lewis Gallery is a community gallery which is frequently visited by students and classes. Hosting the high school art exhibit is a great opportunity for these hard-working artists to showcase their work.”
“This internship has been an amazing opportunity for me to learn about and practice curating an art exhibit, which is something I hope to do as a future career,” Caron said. "So I chose this internship specifically because it's kind of the work that I want to do after high school and college, like working in museums and galleries and I thought it was a really cool opportunity to learn how to do that and it definitely has been."
Harkness said some students have decided to sell their own pieces. If that's the case, each piece has a sticker with a description and price for those interested in buying. Harkness said all the money will go straight to the student who made the piece.
"A lot of it comes to us unframed because we really want it to be accessible to anyone in the Portland High Schools, so we don't want framing to be a barrier. So then we work with the art mart in town to frame and matt the exhibit, so its sort of like the whole process from A to Z," Harkness explained.