Reprinted with permission from The Southerner.
Plainly put, the Minnesotan winter is hard. Over eras and generations, the people who occupy the land we now call Minnesota have faced wintry temperatures and the dreaded and universal experience of cold toes and stinging ears. Living through winter in our state takes quite the toll on you and I, but it bakes something into us. The cold can influence our moods and actions, sometimes even more than the people around us can. It can anger us, it can chill us to our core, and interestingly, it can inspire us. One of the many inspired by this annual ice we encounter is Frances Pickar, a junior at South High.
Enrolled in AP Art, Pickar’s sustained investigation explored her “general feeling of cold and ennui in the winter months.” She added that she’d like to magnify “what it means to be frigid physically and emotionally using color, perspective, and many portraits.” One of her latest pieces, an acrylic painting titled My Favorite Hat, shows a weary and cool-toned version of Pickar. She explained that in the piece she “used different unusual tones and perspectives” in order to “create an off putting portrait of myself to show how I feel when I’m cold.”
Pickar’s love for art undoubtedly blossomed from her very beginnings. Her parents, both artists in their own ways, provided the creative kindling necessary to spark the flame through which she sees the world. As the years passed and empty sketchbooks became full, Pickar only further evolved as an artist.
Last year, a moment of boredom resulted in one of Pickar’s most impressive works yet. The piece, titled Through the Window, depicts the view out of Pickar’s bedroom window. It’s an incredible work of art, and upon first glance you may think it’s real. The idea for this piece wasn’t premeditated, like most of her works. When describing where she gets her ideas from, Pickar said, “I’ve been just kind of laying in bed thinking about all the things that I need to do and then a concept kind of jumps on me.” She stated that the concept, “doesn’t really make much sense because it’s 11:30 at night, but the next day I’ll look back at the crappy drawing I did in my notes app and think, ‘she might be onto something!’”
Something Pickar deeply values when making art is the finished product. She enjoys the feeling that “a piece of [her] mind really came to life,” and enjoys even more when, “people make comments on it and say like they understand and they feel the emotion [Pickar] was trying to depict.” An example of this amazement and support can be seen in one of her most recent pieces, titled These Hands I So Often Ignore. The work shows Pickar’s freezing hands over a radiant background, which many Minnesotans can relate to with freezing hands of their own.
Artistry may be forever, but high school is not. Pickar doesn’t expect to be a freelance painter in her time ahead, but hopes her career has something to do with the arts. Although Pickar may be unsure of what her future may contain, the future can’t change something essential to the fiber of her being. She is, and forever will be an artist.
Oliver Stricherz, a junior, is in his first year as a staff writer for South High School’s The Southerner. He is “driven, angered and interested” in human rights and dynamics, hoping to explore human stories.
