DHAHRAN, 14 March 2008 — These days, art shows all over the world are earning millions for galleries, artists and collectors. But for the seventh year, Dhahran High School, part of the Kingdom’s International Schools Group (ISG), has used their art show to help fund the Habitat for Humanity (HFH) Club’s charitable activities.
The HFH event, which included an art show, dinner and entertainment, raised SR20,000, much of it from the sale of the students’ artwork. It has taken the student artists seven months to prepare for the event under the guidance of Abeera Atique, the department head of Arts at Dhahran High School. Media in the artwork on display included watercolor, oil, charcoal, pastels and plaster. There were marble etchings and digital designs. For some artists, a canvas or a sketch pad was where their inspiration took form. Other students turned to a mouse and monitor to develop their ideas.
“There were many examples of excellent young talent on view at the event,” said Atique. “Hiba Tollah Mardini made an amazing oil painting imitating Carravagio’s style. Danielle Peres’ charcoal sketches were impressive. Her best was a portrait of Mother Teresa, which was appreciated by many parents who came to the show. Karan Abi Akar sketched horses. She sold two of her paintings with the proceeds going to charity. Kyle Jordaan created loads of pencil sketches with complicated compositions. Marium Elbadrashini’s specialty was color pencil surrealist works. Delila Elsayed is a fan of the safari world. She had works in many different mediums. Eram Ansari did an oil painting of Statue of Liberty. More interesting to the younger members of the audience was the vibrant Spiderman sketch by Maya Wehbe. Ridi Rahman and Preethi Lonappan also took innovative approaches in their work.”
The HFH club is one of several student organizations at Dhahran High School. Each year the club selects NGOs to sponsor, one of which is always Habitat for Humanity, an organization which builds houses worldwide in partnership with people in need. The art show also raised funds for The Citizens Foundation (www.thecitizensfoundation.org). TCF is a nonprofit organization which helps to improve education resources in Pakistan. TCF has established 455 schools across Pakistan and has an enrollment of about 55,000 students. Teachers supporting the HFH club are Abeera Atique, Alichia Gerber and Retief Gerber. The club’s officers this school year are Malika Khan, president; Fariha Ahsan, secretary; Umar Merchant, vice president; and Danny Kfoury, treasurer.
One of the most prolific artists featured in Monday’s show was Sana Sheikh. She had the largest number of works on display and used many techniques including painting on velvet. The monies from the sale of four of her paintings were donated to the HFH charity fund.
“I like working with pastels and oil paints. My favorite subjects are horses and women — although usually not in the same paintings,” Sana said with a smile. “I love painting horses because they are so beautiful and their movement is wonderful. I don’t have my own horse so I have to get my inspiration from photographs and television. I plan to study architecture at university next year and this is a good hobby to encourage my creative nature.”
Another student hoping to study architecture, eventually, is Justin Van Zyl. He is a very intense artist who depicts complicated subjects in his work.
“I use mostly pencils and graphite. The underlying idea in all my work should be the concept of mystery,” Justin explained. “The graphite is dark so it lends itself well to that theme.”
This is the first year that Justin, a tenth grader, has had the opportunity to be part of a broad-based school art program. He enjoys the art classes immensely and plans to continue them.
“Now I am looking into using watercolor and charcoal,” he said. “Watercolor will allow me to bring a translucent quality into my work. My dad is very artistic so this must be in my genes. But tonight, even my dad was amazed with my sketches.”
Oil paint and pencil may be inspirational for some students, but Sharna Jahangir usually sits in front of a computer to get her creative juices flowing.
“When most people hear that I do computer aided art, they think of clip art, but what I do is far away from such a thing,” said Sharna. “I create computer graphics with two software applications — Adobe Photoshop and openCanvas. All my drawings are from my own head. I use the mouse instead of a pencil or paintbrush — although I have tried watercolors recently.”
It takes anywhere from 3 to 14 hours for Sharna to finish each piece on the computer. She was very proud to note that she has started doing commissions, including the cover for a novel to be published in the USA.
A night of art and entertainment is delightful, but recently the HFH club members participated in a more difficult life experience. They went to the Philippines and used some of the money they’d earned through charitable fund-raising during the school year, to build homes in Naga City, Bicol.
“We worked on five houses starting from the foundations,” said an HFH sponsoring teacher Alichia Gerber. “The trip was in January and 34 HFH club students were accompanied to the Philippines by four chaperones. I am sure it was a learning opportunity they will never forget.”
The students dug foundations, mixed cement and hollowed out sewage holes, six feet deep. The Filipino community in the area worked alongside the students and while everyone was friendly, it was not a leisure trip by any stretch of the imagination.
“The trip gave our students the chance to learn what real poverty is,” said Gerber. “Students made comments such as, ‘My bedroom is bigger than this whole house.’ It was eye-opening experience for them. It showed them that we have so much, when so many others have so little.”