Recently, the students in Claudia Venditto’s first-semester art classes at Cranston High School West hosted an art exhibition for family and friends. Each student was allowed to choose one of their several pieces of artwork from the semester to display. They also had to create a placard to go along with their piece which explained to guests the reason the piece was chosen as well as they type of art skills utilized, such as mixed media, watercolor or pen and ink, for example, and to explain what they’d learned from creating the piece.

“They’ve really done a lot so far this year, and they’ve done a great job,” said Venditto. “That’s why I wanted to do an exhibition, to show a little bit of what they’ve been doing.”

The students also toured the exhibit themselves and chose pieces for which they would write a “fan art” note for the artist.

According to Venditto, several of her students will also have pieces entered into this year’s Scholastic Key art competition, a national competition which has 29 categories and last year included 350,000 entries from grades 7-12 from across the country (artandwriting.org/what-we-do/the-awards).

The exhibit ran all morning long, with guests coming in every half hour from 9:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. and included Foundations Art, Advanced Art I, and Advanced Sculpture. Light refreshments were served.