Visually Distracting, an art club founded last March, provides an opportunity for budding artists to display their work. Their board is decorated with everything from oil on canvas to elaborate doodles on the back of a Spanish test.
Founded by juniors Natalie Grybauskas, Andy Pratt and Isaac McGinn, the club aims to expose the Stuyvesant community to original student artwork that would otherwise remain etched on sheets of history notes, scrawled amid pages of quadratic equations or decorated on pants.
“In Stuyvesant art classes, everyone is given the same drab, bland assignment,” club president Grybauskas said. “We wanted to make art more important in school. People who focus too much on work tend to forget about other things.”
Faculty advisor Greg Sarutto said the club “is a way of expressing our joy of labor at Stuyvesant, by the students and for the students.”
Visually Distracting encourages the submission of pieces conceived by young artists during tedious classes or random surges of inspiration. The club originally posted submissions on a second-floor bulletin board located in a seldom-frequented hallway.
A week later, Assistant Principal Organization Randi Damesek approved the club for the more-trafficked fourth floor board across from the computer lab. Art teacher Amy Cappell then laid claim to it, leaving Visually Distracting without display space. The club finally found a new home on the third floor in early November.
The club updates its bulletin board every two weeks and receives as many as 40 submissions per cycle. The founders claim they do not receive “bad” submissions. Club vice-president McGinn said when designing displays, they try to avoid “too much black and white, too much of one color or too much of a particular style.”
The board hosts a plethora of styles of art and photography. Though sketches appear to be more prominent in cycles, there is a steady flow of black-and-white photographs as well as Van Gogh-inspired paintings. A pair of ornately decorated bright yellow jeans belonging to sophomore Singha Hon proves the variety of artwork Visually Distracting inspires.
“People talk about teenagers being big on self expression,” Hon said. “Here is something that allows people to do that.”
Sophomore Wacira Maina, who passes the board on his way to class, said, “It was a nice break from the norm, seeing as how most of the things displayed at Stuyvesant are usually academically oriented. It’s a refreshing sight in the morning.”