REFLECTIONS honors the observations of our Niskayuna middle and high school art students as they reflect on their experiences over the past year. This has been an historic time -- I know in my own life I have never had so many challenging and contradictory experiences compressed in just a year.

As adults, we are hopeful yet apprehensive, grateful and grieving.

But how are our kids doing? What are they thinking about? We wanted to hear from our students. In many cases, students responded to open-ended prompts asking them to create an image or artwork that communicated their experiences. In others, students responded to more specific class assignments. In all cases, though, our students were able to communicate their feelings. The work included in Reflections was selected by teachers or peers, depending on the class.

This site is organized by grade level in case you are searching for a particular artist, but I encourage you to take the time to explore the whole site. You'll see film, animation, photography, digital imagery, sculpture, painting and drawing, and I promise you will come away with a better understanding of our collective experience. Many of the artworks include artist's statements that can be accessed by the arrow next to the artist's name.

Thank you to our art students and our art teachers for their contributions to this special exhibit.

Here, we celebrate the creative and insightful voices of our students as they process this year.

Kelly Jones, Director of Art & Design

Amy de Soyza, Melissa Leach, Stephanie Palazeke, Jane Romm, and Melissa Valente, High School Art Educators

Katherine Chwazik, Bryce Colby, Alyssa LaPatra, and Dianne Metivier, Middle School Art Educators

March 12, 2021