Senior Desmond Daniels has found a special kind of freedom in creating art, unconsciously developing a comic style that feels right to him.

“I love art. It gives me the ability to be creative, to get my thoughts down on paper in a visual way. It just allows me to be free,” he said in his quiet, thoughtful way.

At first, Desmond struggled with art in Upper School, trying to get the details down right. Then, his teacher, Amy Diaz Newman, told him art didn’t need to be realistic, and it was okay for him to develop his own unique style. That opened the floodgates.

“I used my own creative style to make what I wanted to make,” he said.

When assigned to take a historical piece of artwork and add something to it, Desmond chose a 1936 painting by Archibald J. Motley Jr. called “The Liar.” The scene depicts a group of African-American men sitting around a table at a club, listening as one of them tells a whopper. Desmond added wolves to the scene, giving it a more comic feel.

But there are times, too, when his art is nothing but serious. When the art teacher asked students to represent someone meaningful to them, Desmond immediately thought of his mom, Daisy.

He made a print/collage with a flower — a daisy — in the center and one special word printed all around.

“I chose sacrifice,” he said.

The hallways at Abington Friends are brimming with students who are on a journey, exploring fresh ideas and pursuing deep interests as they search to find their places in the world. Their eyes shine as they talk fervently about wanting to learn all they can in a field of academics, athletics or the arts.

Read more about “The Discoverers” in the Fall/Winter 2016 issue of Oak Leaves.