The Best Class Ever

The night of the art show, just before lunch, I used the last few minutes of my off-block to hang my life-sized sloth puppet in the gallery for Sculpture.

Sculpture class is the most proud I’ve ever been of myself at school. It ended up being the hardest, but most rewarding class I’ve taken.

The six-person class included a lot of one-to-one instruction and gave me a lifelong appreciation for art. After two projects, a book I used as a medium to represent biting nails and a shirt I used to symbolize child labor, I decided to be ambitious for my last project. With a little more than a week left in my sophomore winter, I set out to create a sloth as my alter-ego.

Here I was, pushing through the term with minimal art experience and a minuscule amount of talent compared to the rest of the class.

I put the idea down in my sketchbook and was in the art studio every night, sewing the muslin and fake fur together before stuffing it and molding its head, claws and nails out of clay.

I was always there after a track meet or baseball game. I consider myself a student-athlete-artist. And I was never alone. I always found someone else working on their sculpture. This contributed to our class chemistry as we bonded over conversations during the nights and weekends spent in the Peddie Arts Center.

By the end, I left with sewing scars on my fingers as souvenirs. As I reflect on my Sculpture class, the nostalgia of the hard work comes back and I’m grateful for getting to know other artists of Peddie.

I walked over to the art show after dinner to see my art appreciated- some people were shocked that I even did art. My effort was already worth it, but the feeling I got at that moment was unmatched. It was just the cherry on top.