Wylie art students Tennley Wilson and Chloe Marquez advanced to state in the annual VASE competition this spring, and they are hoping the experience will help them in their future careers.
Both are hoping to be art teachers one day.
“I really want to be a teacher,” Tennley said. “My mom said it’s my calling. My main goal in life in general is to help people.”
Chloe’s motivation for wanting to teach is her grandmother.
“My grandmother was a teacher for 32 years, and she has said I would be good at it,” Chloe said. “I want to be an art teacher for high school students.”
Chloe’s grandparents raised her, and she said both have had a big influence on her. Her grandfather in particular was a big reason she created her piece that advanced to state, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.
“My grandfather was a big push for this piece,” she said. “He loved mosaics. He just motivated me. He was the one that always told me you should try to do this or try different mediums. They have always supported me.”
Chloe loves using acrylic paint and watercolor, which she used on her award-winning piece.
“I used old CDs that I had around the house,” she said. “I cut them into the shapes and made a mosaic.”
Ironically this was Chloe’s first year in art, and she said she appreciates her teacher Alexis Hughes, who talked her into entering the competition.
“I’m really glad she pushed me to do it,” Chloe said. “I was really surprised. I didn’t think I would make it.
Tennley also did not take art as a class until she got into high school, but like Chloe, she has loved art since she was young. She had two pieces qualify for state. One was a piece she did for the musical Grease, in which she also performed. The piece was called, Tell Me About It, Stud.
“I was really excited to do a piece that would be in the foyer during the musical,” she said. “I decided to do a photo realism piece because that is one of my biggest strengths. I also love colored pencil.”
Her second piece, Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies, was a line drawing, which she does not consider to be one of her strengths.
“This was a project we had to do where you had a sad emotion but you made it with contrasting lines to make it look beautiful,” she said. “This was out of my comfort zone. I never worked with Sharpie. I went crazy with the lines. The outcome came out really cool.”
She said she is still surprised that she qualified for state.
“For me the thought of VASE is this super hard competition,” she said. “I didn’t think it would come to anything. I was floored. I screamed at the top of my lungs. It was a totally surreal moment.”
