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National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) Finishes Strong Year and Looks Forward to Next Fall

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National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) Finishes Strong Year and Looks Forward to Next Fall

National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) Finishes Strong Year and Looks Forward to Next Fall

The 2019-20 school year was Avon's first year of having a National Arts Honors Society chapter, with a special induction to the community at Morning Meeting in December of 2019. We were fortunate to have alumnus Chris Stone of StoneFox, an architecture and design firm in NYC, join us for the ceremony. We are off to a great start already, with each of our members volunteering over 10 hours helping install several on-campus and local art exhibits and taking on a community service project all within the first two months of the establishment! At our third annual middle/high school art exhibit in our Ordway Art Gallery, the NAHS members served as the "welcome crew" and greeted each family—we had well over 60 people attend the opening reception!

In the chapter, we have six members: five seniors, and one junior. Each of our artists also contributed toward a design to present to a local church that would communicate a safe space for the LGBTQ community. The designs were meant to become banners for display outside the church and use art and graphics to welcome, inform, and embrace all people. (Unfortunately, the COVID-19 break from school has put this project on hold for now, but hopefully next year's boys will be able to finish it!)

We began meeting at least once a month officially, but have done so more frequently recently to plan events and a postcard service project. Our boys have participated and won some of the top awards at the Connecticut Scholastic Art Awards, ASAP Young Photographers exhibit in Washington Depot, the Drexel High School Photography competition in Philly, and the National Arts Program. One of our members is finishing up illustrations for a children's book he was commissioned to do along with alum from our school. Other NAHS members are literary and art magazine editors, newspaper editors, official school photographers, heads of other major school organizations, and also recipients of our program from Advanced Independent Projects which also many of our advanced artists and photographers to pursue more in-depth, individually-driven portfolio projects.

We look forward to finishing the year off strong and are in the process of inducting new members for next year!

- Cristina Pinton, Chairperson of Visual Arts

From Matthew Son, NAHS future president: "The National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) at AOF was first initiated this year by Ms. Pinton. In addition to me, this year's members were Eugene Kim, Graham Deckers, Dennis Catrini, Hobie Jamison, and Chris Zhang. In order to be in the club, we had to sustain the requirements such as doing volunteer works and getting a required GPA. This year, we participated in many activities but one of the activities that we did recently was designing the cards and hand-writing those for the newly accepted boys who will be attending and will be part of our AOF community. We wanted to welcome them and make sure they know enough about the AOF community and especially the art programs that they are interested in. In order to design the cards, we have selected two pieces of our drawings or artworks that we have done in the past four years. It was my pleasure to be part of the NAHS member and also becoming the president of the club."

Hand-written Postcards with Student Art for Incoming Avonians

NAHS Spring Magazine Edition

READ Avon's Write-Up in NAHS News Magazine