The Maverick Informer

Their faces hung all across the gallery as individuals moved from one portrait to another. Every piece tells a story about a young child who has faced great difficulties in their life. As viewers observed the murals, there was a slight buzz in the air. A feeling of love and appreciation filled the atmosphere and it was directed towards those children depicted on the canvas.

The Memory Project, founded in 2004, is a charitable nonprofit organization that invites art teachers, art students, and solo artists to help cultivate global kindness by creating portraits of children around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as violence, war, extreme poverty, neglect, and loss of parents. This year, the MHS National Art Honor Society participated and made it their job to create these portraits to help the children feel valued and important, as well as to provide a special childhood memory in the future.

“In Rakhine Myanmar, a developing country, children face challenges that are caused by poor conditions there, such as having to live in refugee camps or nearly experiencing genocide,” President of the NAHS Victoria Vu said. “The Memory project focuses on creating lively portraits as special gifts for these children.”

Each year the program partners up with different charities around the world to help create a portrait for every child and their story. In some cases, this portrait may be the only thing that children will physically have to remind them of their childhood.

“I decided to participate because it reminded me of my cousins and mother from the Philippines who lack record of their childhood,” Senior Chamille Diaz said. “[Instead] the memory of their childhood is spread by word of mouth. Hearing about this opportunity reminded me of family, and it made me glad to know that I would be contributing to a part of a child’s life that they would cherish forever.”

NAHS’ purpose is to service the community through art, and the project was ideal in fulfilling that as the Memory Project is meant to help these children know that many people care about their well being.

“I really wanted to make an impact because the global refugee crisis is a major pressing issues,” Senior Alexis Cross said. “I felt helping the children have a portrait of themselves would allow them to have something to cherish forever since many of the kids don’t have personal items or photos of themselves they own.”

The Memory Project is a great way for the art community to help give back to those that have been given an unfortunate situation. Ben Schumaker, the founder of the Memory Project, created it so that kids can have a sense of their heritage. For some children, this is the first image they have seen themselves, and for most it is one of their most sentimental possessions. Because they know that somewhere out there, there is an artist who made that portrait just for them.“   

Heart pounding as fear of what could happen ran through my head. Being chased by this man  put a toll on my body. The trees I have admired for years, where I was raised, are now my hiding spots, but I cant stop for long. He will eventually bring death to me. His bullets are faster than me, but his aim is off by a mile. I know my time is coming though.  My long legs give me an advantage but I am not built for running I use my tusks to move aside the brush but as I do he hits me right in the back of my knee. I’m half awake when he is sawing away at my tusks. Poachers killed close to all of my family when I was a child. I fall asleep dreaming about my family and what happened to them, every snap, every cry. He has killed many like me he will kill many more.

The definition of endangered means seriously at risk of being extinct, There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and 16,306 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction. This includes both endangered animals and endangered plants. There is a distinction between threatened, endangered, and extinct. threatened species are any species which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Extinct (of a species, family, or other larger group) having no living members.

Sea otters, Giraffes, and the Woolly Mammoth all have something in common. They were all endangered at one point in time. The Southern Sea Otter is making a slow recovery from being hunted massively in the 18th and 19th century for what seems to be its fur. It made a good winter boot thick and water repellent. Sea Otters are native to the coasts of the Northern and Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Giraffes are going through a silent extinction as the growth of the human population has limited the amount of room for the giraffes to roam. Poachers hunt giraffes for their hides and meat. Giraffe tails are highly prized by many African cultures. The desire for good-luck bracelets, and fly whisks led people to kill the giraffe for its tail alone.

A new study of the Woolly Mammoth suggests they might have been wiped out after the last Ice Age. There’s evidence that humans hunted Mammoths for their fur, meat, and tusks. The Woolly Mammoth went extinct in 1650 b.c.

Animals have been going through this for years. They are being hunted to the brink of extinction, until a law is put out stating “don’t kill these animals” with a list well over a thousand species. This is a vicious cycle that will continue until the end of time. Humans naturally have “a too much gene” meaning we always do too much with anything, like we take way too many pictures of the same thing, or we mess up our lives by doing too much. Too much of anything is  bad, no matter what we think. We need to stop, not just with killing animals but with everything in our lives. We need to slow down and admire the things we enjoy. The first step towards that is to not kill exotic animals.

Cows grazing on endless fields of emerald and cowboys riding across the orange dust of their ranches; western inspired scenes imprinted on the canvas of young artists the weeks worth of hard dedication making way to the fruit of happy satisfaction of seeing their artworks on display. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is one of the largest rodeos in the world and while you are chowing down on your fried Oreos and turkey legs our art students participated in another activity dealing with their artistic abilities.

Rodeo art is more than simply drawing men in cowboy boots or cows on a field. It is an art competition with many school levels, high school being very highly competitive because of the types of prices.

“It works with [the] Houston Livestock and Rodeo show, it’s called the school art competition,” art teacher Victoria Satterwhite said. “There [are] different levels, there is an elementary school level, junior high level, and high school level. The high school level is highly competitive because there is lots of scholarship money as well as cash prizes for pieces that go to auction.”

There are many prizes ranging on how well the artwork does, this all depends on if the artwork places in the auction.
“First prize, if they grand champion, means anything from 40,000 to 60,000 dollars in cash,” Satterwhite said. “But the lower pieces that aren’t the grand champions usually make between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half dollars per piece in the auction. [For] the scholarship any senior that gets into the show, gets an application.”
If you have an art class, artworks created can be submitted through your art teachers, but if you do not have an art class and wish to participate in this competition there are alternative ways to join.
“If you do not have an art teacher then you can just come talk to us and we can work on you coming after school to work on it.” Satterwhite said.

This year’s Spring Fling: A Day In Vegas was hosted yesterday in the MHS blackbox. Below are some images captured at the event.

Congratulations, Manvel High 2016 graduates.

Below is a gallery of photos from the ceremony.