What’s a kid’s worst nightmare? Is it monsters coming to life? Or maybe that’s their greatest wish. Suddenly, the sheet is no longer flat. The creatures once trapped in paper and scribbles begin to stand tall. Its smile is grimacing, and its body is now three-dimensional. The art is no longer just a drawing, but a childhood dream come true.
For years, the Sculpture I class at NHS has participated in a multimedia project in the fall, which is still happening for the 2025-2026 school year. But this year, the project comes with a change. Sculpture teacher Kristen Beresford felt the project didn’t need complete reform, just a minor adjustment.
“This year, [I] paired with Mrs. [Megan] Orcutt [the Art instructor] at Promise Road,” Beresford said. “She had one of her classes draw monsters and write a little biography sheet about them.”
After the elementary students completed their own artwork, the sheets were then passed on to the high school Sculpture department. From there, Beresford says that the high school students were assigned a monster to create and bring to life. For sophomore Alice Graham, her creation is a crayon whose name is Vampire Black.
“[My monster] is a vampire, so he has a cape. I sew a lot in my free time so immediately, I decided that I wanted to sew [it],” Graham said.
The cape was made out of felt with a pipe cleaner along the bottom allowing it to open and close. Although Graham says the overall structure of the monster was stable, she noted that attaching the cape to the crayon posed a challenge.
“Crayons are straight up and down. So, I wondered how I could anchor it. I had a lot of fun trying to figure that out,” Graham said.
With this project, the students were given creative freedom to decide how they wished to sculpt their monster. While Graham chose to use clay for the body and felt for the cape, sophomore Sophia Smith took a different approach.
“The main body is clay, but pretty much the rest of it is crochet,” Smith said. “I was going to make little pizzas, because my monster likes pizza and he’s magnetic so I attached it to his hand.”
During this project, most students were unable to choose the monsters they were assigned to sculpt and sometimes the designs presented difficulties.
“Little kids, when drawing, have a lot of freedom. They are less concerned about what others think and therefore are so incredibly creative,” Beresford said. “[The high schoolers] had to figure out how to honor the design visually, whilst making it structurally sound.”
While not all students were assigned monsters with structure imbalances, the class had to come together and collaboratively problem solve.
“There’s a lot of talking through about how we turn this kid’s idea into a physical thing. They’re young and don’t have the best concept of physical space,” Graham said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s floating in a corner, how do we fix it?’”
Smith was dealt different cards than Graham. For her, the monster had a round body and tiny legs.
“My legs were smaller, so I chose to keep mine sitting down,” Smith said. “And since I crocheted his legs, it would just be better that way.”
Beresford believes that the project taught the students to never give up in spite of the initial difficulties that they encountered.
“[A] takeaway is how important it is to follow through on something,” Beresford said. “Sometimes, if [the Sculpture students] have an amazing design but realize it is ‘hard,’ they can give up easily and change the design because they don’t want to challenge themselves.”
The multimedia project tested the Sculpture students in terms of their creativity and perseverance, but also provided them an exciting opportunity and a lasting high school memory.
“I felt like this project was a really good experience for me and I was really excited to tell my friends and family about [it],” Smith said.
Before spring break, the Sculpture students will head to Promise Road for a field trip. When there, they will be meeting their younger partners and gifting them their monster creations.
“I’m a little bit nervous. I want to live up to all their expectations,” Graham said. “I think they’ll be happy and think it’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened to them.”
