Art is one thing that the high school is not known for. Michelle Surrena has a new project in mind that could change that.

Recently, the high school added an up-cycle art class as an elective. This class is taught by none other than Michelle Surrena. This class utilizes old, recycled material to make new, beautiful creations. Currently, they are working on creating a bouquet of flowers using recycled book pages.

“This class is really great. I’m so glad that I took it. It feels good to make beautiful things out of junk,” senior Molly Divine said.

Surrena plans on putting her book page bouquets throughout the school, mainly in Joshua’s. She’s already doing things to integrate artwork into our school, however, her next project requires some help from the student body.

“I’m going to need between 200-500 water bottles for this project. I need a lot of help from you students,” Surrena said.

Surrena plans on creating a chandelier to place in the middle of the commons to bring beauty into the school. She’s basing her vision off of glass blowing artist Dale Chihully who creates magnificent sculptures from glass and paint. She cannot do this with actual glass however, so she is attempting to use water bottles instead.

“I’m on a mission. The possibilities of this are great.” Surrena said.

Surrena does have more than one art class and plans to use that to her advantage. She wants to have a “Chihully day” where all of her students contribute to her cause. They are going to bring in water bottles and help construct the chandelier.

In order to make a great sculpture, they need a lot of water bottles. The process of creating the sculpture is simple, get the water bottles, cut them into shapes, paint them and string wire through them. After all of that, they wire them together to create fascinating and intricate sculptures

“We have a really cool opportunity to bring a really unique and beautiful piece of art into our school. I’m very excited to be a part of it.” Sophomore and up-cycle class student Lily Warren said.

Integrating beautiful artwork into our school is Michelle Surrena’s mission. She can make her dream a reality with the efforts of us, the students. Surrena needs 500 water bottles. Make it happen.