Jennette Jacobs, South Windsor High School Senior, has been working on art since elementary school. She began working with clay in kindergarten, and took her first official claywork class freshman year, starting potters wheel her sophomore year, and continuing ever since. “I love how hands-on pottery is, it’s unique and complicated but once you figure it out then it’s completely relaxing and helps calm you down,” Jacobs reveals. “I also like getting creative and adding handbuilding into my pieces, making them more intricate and personal.”  Jacobs began Advanced potter’s wheel this year, and is already working on her next project, hoping to showcase a variety of mugs and bowl sets, as well as creating unique designs and patterns for them. 

Besides potter’s wheel and claywork, Jacob’s is also taking advanced painting, portfolio prep, and intermediate claywork with cartooning next semester. On balancing her art classes along with other school work, Jacob’s remarks that since she made art a priority this year it has not been difficult to balance, and even allows for her to work on her own personal projects at home. In terms of the future of her art extension beyond high school Jacob’s is looking to go into a creative career for sure; “I plan on keeping pottery as a part of my life permanently. I plan on getting my own wheel so I can throw at home and someday I might even make my own pottery business on the side. I hope I can have my own studio someday with a wheel and a kiln.” Possibly going into writing along with art has also been an idea that she has pondered upon.

By now it is no surprise that Jacob’s is heavily involved in the arts and she has different perspectives on the approach. One thing she noted when discussing her pieces is that when making a mistake, will sometimes leave it so it will add to the personality of the pieces instead of immediately giving up on them. This can add to the individuality of Jacob’s pieces as well as herself, but she feels as though more people should be able to value art. “I think people appreciate art at a basic level, but I don’t think they take enough time to understand it or look deeper than just the surface level. They often see one thing and don’t realize that it could mean a lot more. Since my pottery and paintings are often surrealist, people don’t really understand them at first.” Even still, Jacob’s hopes to inspire people with her art as it inspires her. Overall, Jacobs remarks that “Art helps me to express myself, it calms me down and helps me to feel okay with all the crazy things going on in my life.” Go check out some of Jacob’s pieces down in the art hallway, and watch to see what art she has in store.