North holds creativity in every crevice of the school. There’s the award-winning theater department that just showcased The Hunchback of Notre Dame, there’s the music department of Band, Orchestra, and Choir that successfully wrapped up Solo and Ensemble, and there’s even North’s literary magazine that showcases creative writing and visionary arts of students being put together for its spring publication.

During the Class of 2017 Senior Superlative Award Show, Maddy Kapheim and Jocelyn Byrom were recognized for their exceptional right-brained tendencies with the superlative, “Most Likely to Own an Art Studio.”

“I actually go to an art school, so I’m able to experiment with a bunch of different mediums but I mainly focus on drawing and painting,” says senior Jocelyn Byrom, who actively commutes over to West for Renaissance and participates in the musical. “I originally went to Renaissance to be a filmmaker because I used to want to be a director for film, but I decided to do drawing and painting on the side. I realize that I was kind of good at it. I liked it too. I started focusing more on that.  I was good at film and I would have tried [film] more, but, I hate to say this, realistically it’s really hard for women right now to get into film. They’re getting up there; being a director might be difficult so I might just go with drawing and painting.  That doesn’t mean I stopped filming, I just like drawing and painting a little more.”

Maddy Kapheim also harbors a fascination for a variety of art mediums, from drawing, painting, to metal arts, to freeform ceramics projects. “Ceramics is next to impossible to just try to do at home because it requires so much equipment and stuff, so I really capitalized on my opportunity here to use that equipment. I’ve come to love it. Choosing a college, I’ve really been weighing it on what [college] has good ceramics programs because I really want to keep doing it.”

“Since before I could talk, my mom would give me a pen and a piece of paper and I would draw these little tiny perfect circles in my highchair, and they always tell me about it. And so it’s just always been there. I’ve always just been drawn to paper and pencil or whatever. And I remember, I used to get in trouble in elementary school because all of my homework, tests, everything, had drawings on the sides.”

Now the question stands, will they live up to their title and pursue art as a career?

“I think so,” says Byrom, “ Whether it’s through teaching art or just using the creativity that art has given me. I think I want to be an English teacher, but to be a teacher, you have to be creative to keep the students focus. I feel like I could use my art to help with that, if that makes sense.”

” Yes, I will pursue that as my end career,” Kapheim comments. “For me, I never want what I love to become a chore or stress to survive.  I’m actually starting my own business in the process; I own an LLC with a partner. I don’t necessarily have huge expectations for that to take off, but it should be opening within the next couple of months where we’re selling apparel with artists’ prints on them.  So when people buy the prints, 10% goes back to the artist. It’s called YEA, which stands for Young Emerging Artists.”

Below the article is an original piece by Jocelyn Byrom, and don’t forget to check out YEA on Facebook.