Alex Harris is a visual arts major with a bright mind and future. She sees the arts as a way to challenge her ideas and thinking. Harris believes that funding for the arts is needed in education because she sees the importance of having the arts to help kids develop their ability to think and concentrate on other subjects.

Wenjun Zhang works fluidly and precisely. She lets the brush speak for itself, but also controls its whereabouts and how it speaks for her. With an open canvas, Zhang openly shows self-expression in her painting.

Wenjun Zhang is an Architecture major with a minor in Fine Arts. The only instruction for the painting is to have either a story or an overall theme. Zhang free paints in order for her to figure out her own style and artistic aesthetic.

Zhang enjoys talking about art. She lets the paint dance on the canvas, and that is how her painting’s story is created. Zhang is asked, “Why art?”, and with a quick response she replies, “I love painting, I love drawing, I love art”.

The canvas on which Zhang paints on is made by hand from the students that create their own work. Zhang expresses that the cost of an actual store bought canvas is too expensive for art students who need these supplies daily, which is why they build their own canvas.

Wenjun Zhang paints black drips from the neck of her painting. This is her interpretation of interrupting the perfect picture. Painting and drawing relaxes Zhang and also helps with other school subjects; it makes her think more critically. As Zhang expresses, “There is a connection with the other subjects as well, so it helps in multiple ways”.

Zhang washes her hands in a communal sink as she talks about how art is never finished, but only started.