By Annie Pease, VI Form

Over the summer, I was rummaging through some of my old things and opened a box in the attic to find what was left of my old ballet costumes.  Sadly, the box had become more of a storage space for mice than a storage space for my precious childhood memories.  I began to sort through the remaining bits of tulle and embellished leotards.  Aside from one only slightly damaged dress, the jeweled scraps of the five or six others were the only pieces still in tact.  I realized that the tattered dresses were a physical representation of the memories I have of that time in my life: the shining moments were still in place, but everything around them was gone.  By this time in the summer, I was already trying to develop an idea I could center my AP Studio concentration around, and these dresses seemed like the prefect subject.  Through the fall, I spent every afternoon in the studio figuring out how to make these dresses represent on paper what they meant to me.  I tried several different mediums including colored pencil, water color, pastel, and conte crayon, each time drawing the same dress, but with a new angle, and a new feeling to capture.  Through these drawings, I have found that the more I draw the dress, the more I remember what it felt like to wear it.  With the rest of my portfolio to finish, I hope to use the dress drawings to open up new memories to explore.

Annie Pease is a VI Former and Monitor from Lincoln, Massachusetts.  She has lived in Gaccon House for the past two years.  She enjoys studio art, rec tennis, and has a golden retriever named Quinnah.