With the October First Friday Art Trail coming up this week, several Frenship students are preparing to showcase their creative projects. For the third consecutive year, Frenship High School art students will participate in the art event held in the Lubbock Cultural District.  

A total of 28 students will present 30 original pieces of artwork, which attendees can purchase at the Therese Barrett Photography Studio located at 1812 Texas Avenue. Additionally, four Frenship creative writing students will read from or perform their work, also taking place at the Therese Barrett Photography Studio, beginning at 6:30 p.m. 

Therese Barrett, the owner of the studio, generously offers her space to Frenship students free of charge and without taking a commission on student sales, all in the name of supporting young art students. Joey MacLean, the Visual Arts Coordinator for Frenship ISD, emphasized that the opportunity to display and sell their artwork provides invaluable experience for the students. 

“It helps to motivate them to improve their creations, knowing that the work will be seen by the public,” said MacLean. “The students are also excited that their artwork will be for sale during this exhibit. We had many anxious moments this past week trying to decide what price to put on a cherished work of art.” 

The four seniors who will read or perform their work are currently enrolled in Rebecca Folse’s creative writing class, a new addition to the course guide at Frenship High School. Christina Keomany, Melissa Pilhorn, Abigail McRorey, and Alison Abston volunteered to showcase their creative writing projects as an extracurricular activity, choosing to read from their class pieces or personal collections. 

In a typical day, the class starts with a quick-writing prompt before diving into discussions about the different components of a genre and practice writing in that genre. Folse explained that the class provides students with a space to decompress from their workloads and debrief with their peers, all while maintaining structure and strengthening their writing skills. 

“Creative writing not only gives students an opportunity for a creative outlet,” said Folse. “But it also forces them to dig deeper into who they are as writers and ultimately as people. Just in these first few weeks of school, we have had some great conversations about what it means to be a writer, about identity and confidence, and about future aspirations for the students.” 

Folse stated that the students have set their own ambitious goals of writing full collections or as close to a full story as possible. The goal is not only for students to have work they are proud of by the end of the semester, but also to produce pieces that, with effort, could be ready to send off to an editor or publisher.

“The students really push themselves to work outside of their comfort zones,” said Folse. “I think the class is overall about showing them that they can work outside of what they are used to, and they can still be proud of the work product. Even if the work doesn’t turn out how they intended, they can take pride in their writing, or they can erase it and just start over again.” 

Frenship students will continue to showcase their creativity in various mediums throughout the year at the First Friday Art Trail. Additionally, another public reading by the creative writing students is scheduled for December 11 in the FHS Lab Theatre, where they will read excerpts from their semester projects.