drypoint etching; 8×10”
“Under the guidance of art teacher Jamie Schorsch, students explored the art of drypoint etching as a medium to communicate ideas about conservation and sustainability. Using the U.S. National Parks as inspiration, they researched environmental challenges facing specific parks and aligned their findings with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).”
“I selected my site because I remembered that the National Parks did an LGBTQ history paper, and I wanted to see if there were any monuments that correlated to it. I wanted to do something relating to LGBTQ to improve queer visibility, especially since school can be such a hostile environment for queer people. It’s a statue titled Gay Liberation by George Segal from 1979 to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Stonewall Riot. This was a riot that took place for 6 days after police raided the Stonewall gay bar, and patrons fought back. I find this interesting because it’s one of the only National Park sites that isn’t related to nature. The goal that relates to my piece is reducing inequalities. This is because the Stonewall riots were a retaliation towards homophobia within the Greenwich police force. I expressed this within my art by giving a pride flag to one of the two women because that represents their openness to face opposition because of their sexuality and it shows that in the face of police brutality they were able to stand up for not only themselves but others that were facing the same inequalities as themselves. The process of creating this work has caused me to have more appreciation for all of the work that queer women have done for the LGBTQ community and how queer women, especially black trans women such as Marsha P Johnson. I will share this artwork with my community by giving my extra prints to my friends, and potentially putting a scan of one of my prints into the 2024-2025 OHHS addition of the SAGA book. Overall, this project has been very important to me and educated me about the history of my community and the fights and rebellion that it took to have the rights we do today, and that I will not let that progress be regressed because of a president’s second term.“
ARTIST BIO: Sydney LEHMAN is a grade 10 student at OHHS.