For the past three years, Jesuit high schools across the nation have joined at one school for an annual art showing, consisting of pieces of 4×5 inch art pieces. This year, however, the art show opened a new category- the 3D category- that allowed Jesuit Dallas to send in two ceramics pieces for judging. After all of the judges had made their votes, Jack White ’13 received first place and Cooper Brehm ’15 received honorable mention.
One restriction of the competition was that the pieces must be less than 5x5x5 inches. Ceramics teacher Raymond Ochs shipped the pieces off to Loyola Academy in Wilmette, IL for this year’s competition, officially starting a new Jesuit tradition which has never yet been explored. “They both did very well in the sculpture/3D area of the show,” praised Ochs, pleased to bring in a first place finish in his first year of entering art into the show.
“It feels great to be honored for my piece that I put so many hours of thought and work into,” explained Brehm, who is about to finish his first semester of ceramics and is clearly hooked on the art. He went on to explain what ceramics means to him, “Ceramics enables me to bring out the inner beauty that is trapped in every block of clay,” clearly a powerful connection to the craft which made him go on to characterize himself as a “craftsman.” Cooper made a box with a lid for the show and ended up with an honorable mention among very competitive schools around the nation.
Jack White, who is just about to graduate, finished Ceramics 3 during the first semester, and instead of taking an extra free period, he took on the challenge of Ceramics 4, which clearly paid off. “I was honored that Mr. Ochs asked me to submit a piece and just excited that I won,” he humbly explained after presenting the best ceramics piece in the competition. White’s creation was a small bottle with green, white, and blue glaze, which, for anyone who has ever made a ceramics piece, is a daunting challenge.
Now that Jesuit Dallas has made a name for itself in this art show, it will definitely be a contender in the near future for more awards and accolades; and like athletics and academics, it could go on to surpass its fellow Jesuit high schools around the nation in artistic ability, too.
