Class helps Senior Sonja Ferkingstad prepare for her future

Taylor Young, Staff Reporter
Originally published March 29, 2016

For most students, art classes are seen as an easy A. But for senior Sonja Ferkingstad, Advanced Placement Art is one of the most challenging classes she’s ever taken. “It just takes so much time. It’s not memorizing or answering questions or being good at a certain subject, it’s a lot of inner stuff. You self explore a lot,” Ferkingstad said.

Ferkingstad decided to take AP Art to build up
her portfolio before applying to colleges. For the first semester, students in the class work on creating the “breadth” area of their portfolio which they will submit to the AP art board in April. It includes 12 pieces that are all different to show how students can be diverse and try new things with their art.

The second half is concentration where students pick a topic to study and create drawings that all look like they’re all a part of one big thing and connect with each other somehow.

Despite having been exposed to a wide range of tools and techniques, Ferkingstad gravitates toward a very simple medium: “I don’t know why but I like to do really intricate things that when you step back turn into a picture, and I think that’s easiest to do with a black pen.”

Her favorite type of draw- ings to do are dot drawings, where the artist literally dots everything instead of using lines. “Just because I put so much time into them and seeing it done is really satisfying. I really like to
draw nature just because I really like the way trees look and how each tree is different and mountains and water and stuff like that,” Ferkingstad said.

AP art is a fun class to Ferkingstad because it gives you time in the afternoon to focus on something you really like. “I would 100 percent recommend it because it’s so fun and you kind of get to do your own thing,” she said.

She just got accepted into School of the Arts in Chicago, one of the top art schools in the country, as wells applying to California College of the Art, the New School and Bratt College, all of which she’s waiting to hear back from.

Ferkingstad is the only one in her family who decid- ed to do a career in art. “My sister is really into writing and sports, and my dad does computer stuff,” she said. Her family is still very support- ive of her choice of Interior Design. “You have to go to art school to get an Interior Design degree, and [interior design] has a lot of art in it and it’s very creative.”

Overall, AP art not only feels like a community because of how everyone shares their art with each other, but also because there are only three people in the class.