In one art class, Chagrin students can explore themselves as artists in not just one media, but a variety. No matter if it’s jewelry, metal smithing, digital art, or animation, students can learn new skills through an array of classes.

Senior Tina Logan exemplifies what it means to be a mixed media artist. Since her first drawing class in high school, she has taken painting, illustration and animation, digital fabrication, jewelry, metalsmithing, 2D portfolio prep, and is currently working towards her AP 2D design portfolio. With all of her experience, she’s gravitated towards the 2D art forms.

“I just feel like my art is really different visually. It’s the integration of so many techniques and medias that just makes it look different,” Logan described.

Within 2D design, she experiments with the fiber arts. Fibers consist of the fabric, yarn, and thread that embroider and embellish pieces. Logan mainly uses fibers to accentuate her abstract backgrounds.

Her interest in the fiber arts and mixed media results from her wanting to stand out with her art. She even knitted her AP teacher, Mrs. Jill Eisert, a hat her sophomore year.

“I don’t want my art to look like other peoples’. I want to be very distinctive so I learn a lot of different things. And then I was sitting there and I was like, ‘I have all of these skills, why don’t we just use them all’. And that made it work,” Logan shared.

As she’s exploring using different materials in her art, she’s figuring out the themes that will appear throughout her AP portfolio.

“My essential question is why is self confidence, or making yourself a god, a bad thing. Because I just feel like as people, we always apologize for just being there. And I feel like we martyr people who have that exploded sense of self. So my pieces are about being confident in yourself and being okay with making yourself the most important part of your life,” Logan described.

She feels that Mrs. Eisert has helped her grow as an artist throughout the years. 

“I feel like what she’s done for me a lot is providing the space and teaching me the skills. And then giving us the space to use what we know and be creative,” Logan explained.

Mrs. Eisert has also loved watching Logan try new techniques throughout her high school art classes.

“I enjoy conversing with Tina over her art because it’s a conversation coming from Tina. And I notice over the years, it was more me directing her in the initial years, but now… She has a voice and a vision that she feels really confident in and is trying to actualize through her AP portfolio this year,” Mrs. Eisert shared.

Throughout Logan’s time in Mrs. Eisert’s art classes, she has learned to not compare her art to others in the class.

“Cause you look at other peoples’ pieces and you always go ‘they’re so much better than me’ which you have to realize that’s not what it’s about,” Logan said.

Senior Megan Larkin has taken art classes with Logan ever since their first drawing class together in high school. Now, Larkin takes inspiration from Logan’s pieces and appreciates her energy during class.

“She’s so freaking creative. Like she’ll do stuff and I’ll be like ‘Ok, first of all, how dare you think of something so awesome, and second of all, how did you even think of that’,” Larkin said.

Currently, Logan is working on a piece where the CFHS football team huddles around her and she’s the sole person they’re listening to. For the past year, she has worked as the football team manager and felt inspired to put her own experiences in her artwork.

“Whatever piece I’m working on is my favorite. And that’s mostly just because it’s being developed and I like that exploration of what it’s going to be,” Logan explained.

Logan hopes that she continues to make art in college, even if she doesn’t plan on majoring in it. However, her art classes in Chagrin have created a foundation that will allow her to explore her artistry in the future.

“I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is that art can be an outlet for emotion,” Logan shared. “Or that art can be intrinsically emotional.”