online edition

The Student Newspaper of Hopkins School

    • Fine Art III began work on the Senior Banner during the last week of classes.

Senior Artists Create the Annual Class Banner

Arushi Srivastava '20, Assistant Webmaster
The Senior Banner is produced every year by a select number of willing students who then dedicate their time to making a piece of art that reflects their grade. 
“Five women in Fine Art III are working on the banner, plus some help from friends,” said Annie Nields ’17.

These students have the opportunity to create an object that acts as a time capsule for the memories of the senior class at Hopkins.

This year, Nields and the rest of her studio art class are the only students that even see the banner until it is first displayed at Prize Day.

Each year, the banner portrays a unique design that relates to the personalities of the senior class. This year, the theme of the banner is "Garden Scenes and Walking into New Horizons." Nields said, "We chose this theme because we wanted to picture growth and beauty and wanted to stay away from anything topical."

The main piece of the Senior Banner, other than its artwork and uniqueness, is the display of all the last names in the Senior Class.

The student artists work through a set process to create the banner. They first have to think of an interesting, unique, and realistic design that relates to all of the seniors. After the students have an idea about what the banner will look like, the next stage is making the idea a reality. "We are using gesso on papper and then tempera paint," said Nields.

The art teachers try to stay out of the process because they want this to be a project done by the seniors, themselves, But their years of guidance have resulted in a long array of banners that speaks to the history of the school.

Banner fan and English/Science teacher Canny Cahn noted: "Going back through the banners is a visual tour of the school's past. The earliest representations depict a single-sex male school and the pain of the war years. The conservatism of the fifties transitions into the art and attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s. The renderings show increasing artistic skills. The banner featuring student portraits of every class member in 2002 is uncanny! The most recent banners are full of personality; they often use the bones of the campus as a backdrop for the class."

Anticipation was high for the unfurling of the 2017 banner, which was revealed to the Hopkins Community on Prize Day.
Back
Editor in Chief 
Liliana Dumas 

Managing Editor 
Miri Levin 

News
Sarah Solazzo 
Rose Porosoff
Anvi Pathak 
Lena Wang
Sonali Bedi 
Features
Abby Rakotomavo
Elona Spiewak
Becky Li
Ashley Deng
Aurelia Wen
 
Arts
Aerin O’Brien
Saisha Ghai
Veena Scholand
Ellie Luo
Isha Seth
Op/Ed
Rain Zheng
Winter Szarabajka
Anjali van Bladel
Gitanjali Navaratnam-Tomayko
Bea Lundberg

Sports
Samantha Bernstein
Hana Beauregard
Elaina Paktuka
Beckett Ehrlich
Lukas Roberts
Content
Amelia Hudonogov-Foster
Edel Lee
Micah Betts
Ari Mehta
Olivia Yu
Karolina Jasaitis 

Cartoonists
Susie Becker 
Faculty Advisers
Stephen May
Elizabeth Gleason
Shanti Madison
The Razor's Edge reflects the opinion of 4/5 of the editorial board and will not be signed. The Razor welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to decide which letters to publish, and to edit letters for space reasons. Unsigned letters will not be published, but names may be withheld on request. Letters are subject to the same libel laws as articles. The views expressed in letters are not necessarily those of the editorial board.
     
The Razor, an open forum publication, is published monthly during the school year by students of: 
Hopkins School
986 Forest Road
New Haven, CT 06515

Phone: 203.397.1001 x628
Email: smay@hopkins.edu
986 Forest Road
New Haven, Connecticut 06515
(203) 397-1001