Caitlyn Au '11
Sculpting a Future in Art
Caitlyn Au was amazed that she would be attending the Rhode Island School of Design. Before her junior year the idea of going to art school had never entered her mind.
“I never thought in a million years I would go to art school,” she said. “I thought being a designer or an artist was completely unrealistic.”
She had always enjoyed creating art and remembers being especially intrigued with making fused glass and ceramic sculpture with Shelley Stoffer in Lower School. She assumed that everyone enjoyed art, but during the summer after her sophomore year she began to wonder whether other teens were reading books about costume history and biographies of designers. She also realized that studying art was not as quixotic as she had assumed—apparel design is an industry in which people hold real jobs. In her junior year she took Jack O’Brien’s drawing class, and she went from drawing pictures of clothing to draping mannequins to sewing apparel on a sewing machine. She also was instrumental in creating costumes for the Wizard of Oz.
Apparel design may have more commercial applications, but she also likes sculpture because it offers more creative freedom. She received awards for her sculptures this year at both the High School Art Northwest competition and the Oregon College of Art and Craft.
“In sculpture I use some of the same ideas as in apparel design, but in sculpture you don’t have the constraint of a person’s body.”
