Over the last three years of her high school career, junior Monica Johnson discovered one of her great talents: art. Even though it took her awhile to find her hidden talent, that doesn’t mean she lacks any creativity.

Since Johnson’s freshman year, she has taken a total of four art classes: ceramics one, ceramics two, sculpture with Susanne Redfield, and drawing with Jennifer Close, and is currently taking her fifth and sixth art classes, drawing two and painting, with Close. Close chose Johnson as Art Department Student Of The Month for September.

“My favorite art piece so far is my impasto landscape painting,” said Johnson, “I’ve seen sunsets mainly so I decided to do northern lights. I got a little overwhelmed with my impasto painting because I had a hard time painting the northern lights, and when I brought it home to work on, I ran out of black paint, but I like how it turned out.”

Although she hasn’t decided if she wants to continue doing artwork in her future, the art teachers can see her being very a successful artist.

“She creates art because she wants to depict a message, not just with the aesthetic quality, but also through emotion, ” said Redfield “She takes her work very seriously and has symbolic meaning in every piece she makes and takes a lot of time making sure that the meaning shows.”