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C4 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, June 13, 2001 SELECTED HANGING BASKETS "LARGEST GROWER OF 8EDOWGHANT5N THE AREA" box plants SO Q Q ®.89 each. 1 0 inch baskets Arts & Entertainment Oakville BeaverA&E Editor: Carol Baldwin 845-3824 (Ext. 254); Fax: 337-5567; E-mail: baldwin@haltonsearch.com Students rewarded for artistic visions No limits on young artist' s creativity By Carol Baldwin ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Student animated about artistic future By Carol Baldwin ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Tiffany Clark has been given carte blanche from a couple who have commissioned her to do a five-by-six-foot canvas painting for their home. That in itself may not be so unusual. The fact that the artist is only 17-years-old, though, adds a new dimension to the equation. The teenager received the commission during the annual OAC art show at Abbozzo Gallery earlier this year. And she was recently honoured with a $2,000 art scholarship from the Oakville Galleries Volunteer Association (OGVA). The three adjudicators judged Clark's work to be the best of the 12 entries in the OGVA's annual scholarship competition. "I saw it as a good opportuni ty because my dad really wanted me to try for any scholarships that I qualified for," the Appleby College student says with a laugh. Clark describes her multimedia art work as "funky stuff," a specialty of hers that seems to attract money. "That's all I do. I've never been realistic. It's modem," she says. "I've never restricted myself to any media. It's what ever I feel like using. One day it might be wire. One day it might be acrylics. I've used broken glass and hangers and an old lamppost o f my grandm oth er... And I have worked with clay." She explains her propensity for unusual materials by expressing a disdain for "flat, fruit-on-a-platter" type art, which she finds "boring and Photo by Peter C. McCusker Tiffany Clark, of Appleby College, sits in front of one of her paintings. overdone." The young artist's creativity began with doodling as a child. Yet, when she describes some of the her artwork today, it's as though she's still enjoying the fanciful doodling of an uninhib ited child. One piece that was part of her portfolio for the scholarship, which she titled `Fate', was created by blowing a solution of tempera and bubbles onto a canvas. These modem methods of creating art also end up being stress-busters, says the teen, who refers to herself as "the most fidgety person alive. "I just can't stop coming up with ideas. I've done over 17 pieces this year, and I'm work ing on another one," says the prolific artist, explaining that when she's not in class, she's in the art room at Appleby. "I always work big. If you do something small, you're always restricted by the size. But if you do something big, you can get into the little parts and there's more to see. But that doesn't mean I don't do detailed work." Clark will use her $2,000 scholarship to defray the cost of post-secondary school educa tion at the University of Guelph, where she will begin working on her BFA in the fall. "I want to become an art teacher," she says, adding that teaching will not interfere with her work as an artist, but will take her love of children into consideration. "I'd like to com bine my two passions." FRO M JU N E t 3 to "It's a comment on how today's commercialism takes advantage of nature," Willem Pretorius says of his large paint ing depicting a Coca Cola label on a round table top with pieces of twigs artistically attached. "We don't think of our effect on the environment. It's nature at the expense of superfluous things, which is wrong." Pretorius is the second place winner in this year's art scholar ships, presented by the Oakville Galleries Volunteer Association (OGVA), and he's quite an envi ronmentalist as well. The 18year-old White Oaks Secondary School won a $3,000 first prize in a national art competition a couple of years ago fora painting he did of Mother Earth. But Pretorius doesn't just cre ate environmental paintings and mixed media pieces, he loves to draw figures and animated char acters. Some of his character drawings have no accompanying story, others do. One he's work ing on at the moment, he says, "keeps changing as I go. So there isn't really a specific premise, it's just a bunch of characters some where in medieval Scandinavia." Those characters and the story ideas that accompany them are often supported by sketches the award-winning artist did as far back as Grade 8, which he then incorporates into a current cre ation. "I like medieval Scandinavian music," he says in an attempt to explain where his ideas originate. "There are a lot of bands today that take that and put it to modem beats. That intrigues me. So, as I listen, I get ideas." Pretorius has been drawing since childhood, taking advan tage of the scrap paper his father, a quantity surveyor, would bring home from work. "Whatever scrap paper he had Photo by Barrie Erskine Willem Pretorius, of White Oaks Secondary School, and his "Industry and Ingenuity." from past projects, he just As a means to that end, the brought home. So my drawings Oakville teen will use his $1,000 always had printed stuff on the OGVA scholarship to help defray back," the OAC student says costs at Toronto's International with a laugh, adding that those Academy of Design, which he drawings featured mostly will attend in the fall. dinosaurs. But by Grade 7 or 8, "They do mainly fashion and when art was taken more serious interior design, but also comput ly at school, he began drawing er animation, which is what I'll figures. be in," he says, explaining that he As for the OGVA scholarship, selected that particular school Pretorius, who is a self-pro because its computer animation claimed procrastinator, submit course only takes nine months, ted a few paintings and drawings yet it has a good job placement that he already had on hand, record. "I'm not concerned that although he did do some quick I'm not going to get a job, "finger painting" to create a num because the Academy makes it ber of new faces. their goal to get everyone a job. "They were mainly ink. They They're good like that." turned out kind of nice - interest So, if it's possible to combine ing stuff," he says. the two, you may, someday, play And interesting stuff is what a video game in which the hero is the young artist prefers. 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