When the two letters AP are placed before any school subject they have the ability to cause a tremor of fear to run through any student’s body. U.S. History becomes much more domineering and Calculus’s already tough reputation is intensified, but when placed before Studio Art one is unsure of what to think.

It’s true, AP Art is nothing like any of the other AP classes offered in this school, but it is in no way a joke.

“I don’t really know much about it,” said senior Brooke Bentley, and many students around the school feel the same way.  Due to the course’s non-academic nature, the class is able to offer a much more independent curriculum than core classes.

In the class, which is three separate programs of 2D, 3D, and drawing, the students are in control of what materials they use to make each piece, the size of their object, and above all, their choice of topic.

Within those categories students even have the option of focusing on specialties such as digital photography, darkroom photography, print making, and ceramics depending on their background. To some this may seem like a welcome change to the structured curriculums offered in most of the classes at DHS, but in actuality it gives rise to a new gamut of responsibilities and potential for error.

 To start off each week, after devoting over 15 hours of out-of-school effort to one and a half pieces, each student must bring in the objects of their sweat and tears with the risk of having them completely altered at the critique. No one’s artwork is safe and it is uncomfortable at best to have your work ripped apart, yet the consequence of not taking the advice of others is equally as detrimental.

“You’re putting it out there for the world to see, and it is a reflection of so many things about yourself,” said AP Art teacher Maura Erwin. “It is a personal investment and people apologize, but there is really no right or wrong because there are so many ways to approach things.”

Art requires one to both master a style all his own while at the same time taking into consideration an idea completely unlike the original intention; in order to please the AP board and of course, the administrator of each quarter’s grades, one is often forced to change his work drastically.

“When I chose the class I didn’t know what I was signing up for. I thought it was going to be easy but you have to have a reason for everything you do,” said senior Taylor Sousa.

Students are held to a high standard of independence and with that comes the responsibility of having good artistic judgment.

Ms. Erwin stated that the AP art expectations “are very much like [those of] a capstone project in college,” meaning that each student is expected to rise to the performance level of a graduating college art student.

Although AP Art is more of a practical class, it still requires a fair share of academic work that corresponds with the artwork. Students are required to write two proper research papers throughout the year, a plethora of project proposals, book assignments, and are expected to have a steady stream of artists that they are researching for inspiration.

With these requirements and the addition of having one and a half completed quality pieces of artwork each week, the work can be exhausting and overwhelming at times, yet bystanders fail to give the deserved credit.

“The workload that we get is just as much as other AP’s,” said senior and art student Elaine Lin. “People need to realize that art is not easy. It’s not something that you can create overnight; we put a lot of time and effort in.”

Senior Kerin Gaydou, a photography student in the class, admitted that “in a lot of ways photography is much easier and less stressful because we can just go out and take some pictures and be done.” But even the “easy” route requires a strong prior knowledge and understanding of priniciples. An art student can not get by relying solely upon educated guesses and good test taking skills like in many subjects and it is easy to spot who actually put the work in and who didn’t. AP quality artwork doesn’t appear out of thin air and as Ms Erwin stated, “You can’t fake it.”

The AP art class, if nothing else, teaches students to adapt to situations and that even the most resistant of people can master the art of time management, but the class is more than that.