Audition Requirements
Applications with audition videos are due February 28.
1. Curate a collection of 8-10 original works of your choice, using pieces you have completed on your own time, not assignments from schools.
Include:
- at least one black and white drawing
- one drawing in color
- one example of painting
- one 3D work
No more than 2 of the 8 - 10 pieces may be digital. Digital pieces will not be counted as the black and white drawing, color drawing, painting, nor 3D requirements.
2. Create a single Word Document or PDF that includes one quality photo for each of your chosen pieces. Make certain that the photos are large and easily viewed in the document (1 image per page). There will be a place on the application to upload the document.
3. Create an unlisted YouTube video (about 10 minutes long) where you do the following:
- Introduce yourself: include your name, grade, school and county.
- Pan through your 8-10 works of art and give a brief explanation of each.
- Answer the following interview questions:
Interview Questions
- Which piece is your strongest one? Explain why.
- PAVAN uses an Open Studio model where you aren't given projects to complete by the instructors. You have to develop and create your own with help and guidance from the instructors. How do you think you would do in that type of environment..
- Why PAVAN? If you're new, what are you hoping to get from this two-week experience? If hope to return, what makes you want to come back again?
About the Visual Arts Division
Additional Information
In our Open Studio environment, the instructors work as mentors, helping students choose an area of concentration and develop a plan for their art. Students are not given cookie cutter assignments to complete.
The main benefit of the Open Studio is that students are treated and respected as artists with varying interests, and as such, will have a choice in subject matter, media, concept, and composition. They do not work to carry out the instructor's vision, but work to develop their own vision. As a result, instruction is highly personalized, and although there is whole group and small group instruction, there is plenty of one-on-one instruction to aid students in their unique lines of inquiry.
In the Open Studio there is more room for creativity and innovation since students not only learn to solve problems, but they learn to find and define their own problems. Since the freedom of choice can actually hinder or stall creativity, the instructors will work closely with students helping them to create the limitations under which they will create their work.
Every student receives a visual journal/sketchbook in order to document their experience in the program as well as to develop the ideas and the concepts that will drive their work. Some students may choose to work primarily in the journal with little work outside of the journal, and others may use the journal as an integral part of their artmaking process as they brainstorm, sketch, and experiment in it. No matter the student's concentration, all students will use the journal as a reflective tool to help them think about, develop, and improve their work.
Faculty
Mike Mendez
Simply put I believe it is my job to get students to the best work they are capable of producing in the manner and style of their interest. It is important to expose the student to ideas and methods that may fall outside of their current experience, but in a way that allows them to find their own unique voice rather than shaping it to meet my own interests.
A graduate of The Corcoran School of Art (BFA) and the University of Colorado (MFA), Michael Mendez has been an adjunct instructor at Shepherd University in West Virginia since 1997. He teaches classes in Photography, Art History, and Visual Thinking. He was a member of the Blue Elephant Art Center in Frederick Maryland from 1997 through 2007. His work can regularly be seen in solo and group shows nationally. His 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall; A Child’s Introduction to Binge Drinking (for Andy) was included in Johns Hopkins University Press’s “Addiction and Art” book. He has won the Governor’s Award and Award of Excellence at the Biennial West Virginia Juried Exhibition.
Shawn Grove
Veteran art educator and accomplished artist Shawn Grove currently teaches for Loudoun County Public Schools and owns the Wood Fired Pottery Studio.
Artist Statement: The perception of beauty can be found in nature with its predictable, yet still unpredictable patterns. The beauty of the wood fired process is the creation of individual pieces of work that can never be replicated in totality due to the chaotic flux of fire. Chaos is order disguised within disorder and such is the wood fired process. Utilizing elements of nature such as raw earthen clay, ash glaze, wood, and fire, the production of an organically based art form is achievable. I believe strongly in the interaction and experience of humans with art, as art in its earliest forms was interwoven with daily life. Wood Fired Pottery with a focus on functional wares achieves these ideals
Eric Scott
Eric M. Scott is an artist/educator born and raised in Washington, Pennsylvania. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Art Education from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and currently lives in Purcellville, Virginia and teaches for Loudoun County Public Schools.
As a practicing artist, Eric has been making art since his childhood, and currently explores drawing, painting, and mixed media. He has had solo exhibitions at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in Greensboro, NC and King Street Coffee in Leesburg, VA. His work has been part of exhibitions at the Krypton Gallery in Leesburg, VA; George Washington University, in Ashburn, VA; Franklin Park Arts Center in Purcellville VA. Eric was also a member of the Gateway Gallery in Round Hill, VA, and he has been a participating artist on the Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour.
Eric has seventeen years experience teaching elementary and high school art, and has taught at Patterson High School in Baltimore City, as well as at Potowmack Elementary School, Stone Bridge High School, and John W. Tolbert Elementary School in Loudoun County. Along with teaching regular public school, he has taught various summer programs for the past fifteen years including LCPS’s Summer in the Arts, PAVAN’s Summer Regional Governors School, a Round Hill Arts Center’s Visual Journal class, and a Blue Ridge Arts Councils summer arts program. In addition to teaching at the K-12 level, Eric has taught various adult classes, workshops, seminars for LCPS’s Adult Education program; Art Unraveled in Phoenix; the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee, NC; and Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh, NC.
This summer he will be co-teaching a self-created art retreat in Ashburn, VA titled Journal Fodder Junkies: The Retreat. Along with teaching, Eric actively contributes to his profession as member of both the National Art Education Association and the Virginia Art Education Association, and he has given countless presentations and workshops to educators at the state, regional, national, and international conferences. Eric has provided many professional development presentations and workshops over the last ten years, most notably for Frederick County Public Schools in Virginia, and Howard County and Charles County Public Schools in Maryland.
In 2010 Eric teamed up with David Modler and coauthored a book on visual journals, The Journal Junkies Workshop: Visual Ammuntion for the Art Addict, which was released by North Light Books and quickly became a bestseller in the mixed media community. Feeling like they had not exhausted their ideas on visual journals, they wrote a follow up book, Journal Fodder 365: Daily Doses of Inspiration for the Art Addict.