The American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) has accepted the works of three  artists from Arcadia High School (AHS) for its 2024 High School Exhibit: junior Alexis Chang, senior Lucy Gao, senior Clarissa Gil, and With over 500 student submissions to the museum and only 100 final selections by the curators, this exhibition affirms the abilities and passions of these three students.

Since 2014, the annual American Museum of Ceramic Art High School Exhibit has invited high school students to submit their ceramic art and has given students a platform to showcase their works to a wide audience. In past years, the museum only accepted submissions from Southern California high schools. This year, however, the museum has allowed students nationwide to submit their artworks.

To Gil, whose artwork was a ceramic wine bottle titled Viña Gil, being featured in this exhibit came as a welcoming surprise.

“I was kind of surprised, even though I really liked my wine bottle. I think it’s my favorite piece out of all the ones I’ve done this year. But at the same time, I feel like the actual shape of the bottle wasn’t perfect, I was really happy in the end though.” said Gil.

Gil believes that what made her wine bottle stand out is the details of the bottle and her personal connection to it.

“My favorite thing about ceramics is just doing detailed little paintings on my ceramics. So I think what stood out about my work was the painting on it. The wine bottle is also inspired by my family roots. My family owns a bar, so I wanted to display my family’s business. On the piece, it actually has our family name as the wine’s name,” said Gil.

Reflecting on her creative journey, Gil believes that it’s important to create art that speaks to one personally.

“Don’t create art just for winning competitions. Create something that you would love to have in your room or just display in your house. For me, I just really enjoy painting fruit, for example. So that’s why I painted them on the wine bottle. Try to incorporate what you enjoy into your pieces,” said Gil.

For Gao, whose artwork was a ceramic cat titled Once Someone’s Treasure, she also was surprised by her work being featured in this event.

“I was surprised but it wasn’t a huge deal. I kind of forgot about it until my teacher told me, but it was a welcome surprise,” said Gao.

Gao describes her final artwork as a product of her love for cats and happy accidents while glazing the ceramic piece.

“It was one of our assignments where we had to create a sculpture. I really like cats, so I decided to make a cat sculpture. I was glazing it but the glaze kept falling off. And once it was fully fired, it looked very old, like something you would find in an antique store. So I shifted my focus and my theme onto that instead,” said Gao.

Reflecting on her work, Gao encourages artists to be bold in their creative journeys.

“I am an artist in a lot of different media, not just ceramics-wise. So I would say to just do the outrageous things. Just do what you find interesting. You don’t need to make things aesthetic because that’s not always what art is. Do what you find interesting and what showcases your spirit,” said Gao.

Mrs. Lolbette Moreno, the AHS ceramics teacher, was excited by the news of AHS students being featured in this exhibition.

“It was a surprise to me. When I was working at other schools, some of my previous students earned this recognition. But this is the first year I submitted student works from Arcadia, and we were featured. I had entered about 25 students’ work, some students I entered one piece, some more,” said Mrs. Moreno.

Regarding how the curators select the final works for exhibition, Mrs. Moreno believes that the focus is on the ceramic techniques used, the materials students use, and the diversity of a student’s work.

“I think they look at different techniques and maybe other materials that the students incorporate into their work. Some students would add wood or wire or metal or fabric into their ceramics so it’s a mixed media. They would also likely want a variety of pieces, like maybe one is hand-built and another is wheel-thrown. But it’s always a surprise in the end,” said Mrs. Moreno.

While the exact criteria for selection is unknown, Mrs. Moreno noted a few shared characteristics of the final accepted works.

“Craftsmanship and attention to detail is a strength of all the final works. For Lucy’s cat sculpture, for example, it’s charming because of its emotion, the clothes that it’s wearing, and the colorful glaze,” said Mrs. Moreno.

Mrs. Moreno also commented on the importance of composition in a work, citing Chang’s work Blue Bounty.

“Composition is also important in, for example, Alexis’s plate of blueberries. Instead of putting one blueberry, she decided to put a bunch, and then they overlap. It shows that the student is thinking about depth in their art and makes it nuanced and interesting,” said Mrs. Moreno

For the next year, Mrs. Moreno plans to submit more student works to the museum.

“Every year we’re going to try to do better and better. So next year I might announce this exhibition earlier. This year I announced it in the second semester since student work gets better during the second semester, and the works we submit are usually from later projects in the class,” said Mrs. Moreno.

Photo Courtesy of AMOCA