The teacher who nominated Caroline Kim for Artist of the Year described her this way: “a doer, a thinker and always a designer.”
Here’s one of the reasons why Paige Oden, director of the visual arts conservatory at Orange County High School of the Arts, used those action words.
“She has created several designed animal characters and related images and has branded those characters and images into a self-sustaining business that fuels her passion for design and success.”
In naming Kim the fine arts Artist of the Year, her abilities as a painter, designer and embroiderer stood out to the judges. She doesn’t appear to be headed to a life as a starving artist.
Kim, 16, came across professional, yet humble. Accomplished, yet picking up new techniques quickly.
“She had the skill, the passion and the art,” said Kelley Moglika, adjunct professor of drawing and painting at the Laguna College of Art and Design
Added David Kiddie, associate professor of ceramics at Chapman University, “She’s going to be a successful businesswoman.”
Kim brought along examples of TheCityTigers brand she created for her own enjoyment and has sold at OCSA’s winter market. They included engaging juice and milk drink boxes that keep the consumer sipping to the bottom to reveal the answer to riddles along the way.
She’s also created mugs, plush toys, totes, and T-shirts. She’d sold about 100 so far with plans to do the winter market again and explore other venues.
Why the tiger motif? Kim had a plush tiger she carried everywhere as a child.
Her work included a mixed-media identity piece — inspired by her childhood toys — that involved working on a sewing machine, wielding a hot glue gun, and embroidering cloth pieces.
She said she is driven to use art to explore the world of design, “realizing that my passion resides in creating for others.”
Kim has gravitated toward design because “You have this issue or something to solve and you use creativity and art to solve it.”
Like, getting children to drink their milk.
She told the judges she feels validated just by someone enjoying what she’s created even if they might not connect her name to the finished product.
When Kim said that, Cho noted, “I was like, OK, I’m sold.”
She still has her senior year to finish at OCSA and then hopes to attend a college with a good design program.
Fine Arts finalists
In addition to Artist of the Year, the judges selected finalists from among the 16 Fine Arts semifinalists whose work spanned drawing, painting, sculpting, 2D and 3D styles, mixed media and ceramics.
Anais Esquivias Collado, Division 1: He’s soft spoken but Esquivias Collado’s mixed 2D styles say a lot about his thoughts. There’s the acrylic piece “Hunger,” about wanting to be someone else, he said. And his watercolor, acrylic and color pencil image of a boy looking at a drawing of a boy is about wanting to change yourself, the La Habra High senior, 18, explained. “That’s supposed to be me, holding kind of like a self portrait.” Chapman ceramics professor David Kiddie observed the “deep thinking going on there.”
Ethan Larsen, Division 2: Album covers and the “vibe” of the hard-core punk and metal music he listens to are Larsen’s greatest inspirations. “I like to think of my work as myself and the music, which is why it looks rough around the edges.” He’s OK with mistakes when he’s sculpting; he leaves them in. He purposely nicks his pieces to “make them look all torn up.” The senior at Esperanza High in Anaheim explained how “good or bad, it still makes you feel something.” But ceramics isn’t cheap, the 18-year-old pointed out. That’s got him thinking about becoming an electrician.
Chili Sloop, Division 1: Sloop, 18, possessed the coolest name of all the semifinalists, the judges declared. Sloop likes to focus on the environment and family portraits of relatives in Denmark when she draws. Black ink is her preference. A senior at Orange County School of the Arts, Sloop is interested in the ocean, scuba diving and biology. She’d like to start a line of adult coloring books about environmentalism. On her dives, she’s seen trash 50 meters below the surface. It bothers her: “I want to make people aware of that impact.”
Melody Wu, Division 1: Wu, 18, is once again a finalist in Artist of the Year. She paints, draws, sculpts, and creates 2D and 3D mixed media. “In a world so hectic and fast-paced, art gives me the power to instill order in my life.” She helped start the National Art Honor Society at Orange County School of the Arts. Activities included drawing classes at homeless shelters and art tutorials for children nationwide. A senior, she plans to attend a liberal arts school and make art a part of her education path.
