Gallery • 11 Photos

Zoey Fox

Artists and their families and friends enjoy Benny's pizza during the auction

An auction of their artwork at Benny Sorrentino’s last week provided HHS students an opportunity to contribute to the community and branch out as artists.

Benny’s donated some of their notoriously enormous pizza boxes to HHS art classes, and students in Art 3, 4 and AP Studio Art turned them into artwork. The art was sold in a silent auction hosted by Benny’s.

The proceeds from the auction went toward the local chapter of Any Given Child, a non-profit organization run on a national scale through the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Any Given Child works to provide access to the arts for K-8 students, both in school and in the community.

J.R. Snow runs Harrisonburg’s chapter of Any Given Child. He explained the organization’s focus.

“Our mission is really simple; it’s all about arts, access, equity, for all, in grades K-8. Our whole purpose is to create experiences for those students and make sure that every student gets those opportunities,” Snow said.

Going into the Benny’s event, Snow didn’t have specific expectations for how much money would be raised. He was more focused on the other benefits this event could bring to student artists and their community.

“We didn’t have any set expectations or anything. It was a fundraiser; it’ll raise the funds that it does, and it’ll be great. …But [it was also great] as a community connector for people who didn’t know what Any Given Child was, or didn’t understand what we were doing, and then on top of that because we connected the student artwork— students having an opportunity do to real art in a public place and potentially see their work being purchased, used [and] displayed. That’s exciting… as a young student artist, to have your stuff displayed in a public place,” Snow said.

The idea to use student artwork to help fund a program that aims to make art opportunities accessible to students was Mary McMahan’s idea. A senior at JMU and an HHS graduate, McMahan has helped organize events in the community before through her internship. However, this project was the first one she organized independently. Like Snow, McMahan came into the evening without definitive expectations for how much money this event would raise.

“I don’t know if I had expectations. I learned that it’s not all about fundraising; it’s also about showcasing students’ artwork… I just want people to come and to know about Any Given Child and know that Benny’s cares about the community,” McMahan said.

Even though she didn’t have specific standards in mind for the student artwork, McMahan was very impressed by the quality and diversity of the pizza boxes.

“When they brought them in, I couldn’t believe it. I was so impressed,” McMahan said.

Senior Andrew Ansah is an Art 4 student who participated in painting the pizza boxes. He was impressed by the variety of the artwork, too.

“I was there [at the fundraiser], and I just thought it was interesting, once they were all lined up, to see how different everyone’s styles were, in terms of what they did with the pizza boxes,” Ansah said.

For Ansah, this project was an opportunity to experiment with a new artistic style.

“[Working with fewer guidelines], you can experiment with things that you’ve never really had experience with… I’ve been trying to branch out recently… because I generally use pen and ink in a lot of my art, so I wanted to try something different,” Ansah said.

He used mixed media, including tape, paper and markers to create his pizza box, titled “DELICIOUS!!!” It was inspired by a scene in the movie “Ratatouille” that used striking visuals to emphasize flavor.

Ansah also appreciated the additional pressure that came from knowing his art would be displayed publicly.

“Honestly, my favorite part was the struggle, because I do think that artists work best when they’re at their limit, and they’re coming up with ideas that they wouldn’t before… [I liked] having it all come together when I was short on time, because that’s when my best effort on it came out,” Ansah said.

Junior Naomi Gelberg- Hagmaier, an Art 3 student, was also satisfied with the way her box turned out.

“I got started on it pretty early, so then I had this period of time where I just wasn’t working on it because I kind of got into a rut with it, but then with the finished piece, I’m pretty happy,” Gelberg- Hagmaier said.

Gelberg- Hagmaier’s box is more abstract than many of the other pizza boxes, titled “Atelophobie”, meaning ‘the fear of imperfection.’

Gelberg- Hagmaier liked the idea that art students were creating art to promote art.

“It’s probably a smart way of fundraising for something. It’s like, ‘Look! If we fund that we can get more of this.’ Just that idea that this is what we’re investing in,” Gelberg- Hagmaier said.

100 percent of the proceeds from the silent auction and twenty percent of Benny’s sales between 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. went to Any Given Child.