Teaching artist Sarah Conarro guided students to carefully notice the patterns, forms, and details within their home environments. Students made still life drawings of objects at home and took photographs of these objects to share digitally during class sessions. This process helped them find personal meaning while uncovering a shared visual language. Despite not being classmates, the students developed a creative community through their collective focus on fundamental artistic techniques.

This project empowered students to transform everyday surroundings into sources of creative expression. With a focus on technical skill-building, students practiced portraiture, collage, photo transfer, and color mixing—working with acrylic paint, colored pencils, and layered materials.

Throughout the process, students also developed a shared language for critiquing and refining their work. Teaching artist Sarah Conarro worked closely with them to build the skills needed to observe their own pieces with greater awareness and intention. By studying the elements and principles of art—like contrast, balance, and emphasis—students learned to identify what was working in their compositions and why. For example, if a student felt drawn to a particular area of their painting, Sarah helped them break down the visual qualities—perhaps noticing a strong use of contrast—and then apply that understanding to other areas that needed more attention. Over time, practicing critique became a way for students to independently lead discussions and assess their own work, empowering them to move beyond intuition and make thoughtful, deliberate artistic decisions with clarity and confidence.

In collaboration with writer Farah Barqawi, students asked, “What is detail?”—responding with single-sentence reflections that captured the quiet complexity of their home spaces.

With artist Julian Bozeman, students brought these reflections into the digital realm. They recorded themselves reading their sentences aloud and learned to transform their analog work—such as photo transfers and portraits—into digital animations, including GIFs and layered video pieces.

Each student’s artwork reflected individual choices—color schemes, objects, composition—yet shared a common visual structure, creating a unified body of work. The project culminated in a collective, looping video featuring students reading their single-sentence reflections aloud. With an atmospheric, electronic beat-based soundtrack crafted by artist Julian Bozeman—layered with recordings of the students’ voices—the video invited viewers into an immersive experience, where image and sound echoed the subtle textures of home and place.