In an email addressed to the entire high school, featuring a gif of Snoop Dogg at the Last Supper, one of the Teen Art Wave founders, senior Sophia Rooney announced the new club and its first meeting, in English teacher Matt Laufer’s room on November 8 — the day of the election during U-lunch.

This club was created to help bring back focus on the arts to Parker. Rooney and senior Natasha Lerner, the other head, had noticed a decreasing amount of creativity and artistic ideas in the high school.

“Both me and Natasha felt that the upper school was lacking a space for people to work freely and creatively,” Rooney said “We wanted to bring back motivation for the arts and also provide a space and block of time for people to create things at school.”

Rooney and Lerner will increase “creative energy in the upper school” and that this will continue after the leaders graduate in June. Whether it is for song writing, painting, or collaging, the goal is always the same: to create a space for this creative energy.

Part of the motivation to start the club came from Lerner’s friend from New York who started Teen Art Salon, a studio space that the teen would rent out for use by anyone who wanted to come to do their art. People would paint, draw, and make music there. Lerner never attended, but had a number of friends who did it and loved it.

The meeting was described in the email as a “space where people can create all different kinds of art-like painting, music, film, photography, writing, etc.” The email invited interested students to bring any materials of their own, as well as any projects already underway.

Music rooms downstairs are usually available for the club to use recording equipment and instruments, with permission of music teacher Alec Synacowski. Art teacher Travis Chandler has also helped the club by lending video equipment. The club is also in works to get the school to give the club actual art supplies.

“What we’ve been doing is bringing in paint, magazines, pens, canvas, paper, brushes, and other things that aren’t too hard to bring in ourselves,” Lerner said. “Hopefully we will get a budget soon that allows us to get more materials. People can also bring in whatever they want.”

During the Teen Art Wave Club meeting, groups of students, eating food, scattered across the table are a variety of materials, and all students working on new projects or projects they are already working on.

The first faculty member Lerner and Rooney contacted to sponsor the club was Matt Laufer, since they felt that he would have an interest. They approached him through a casual conversation about art at Parker, and about all of the resources that have gone into STEM projects at Parker and elsewhere.

“I thought that was fine and good, but that the arts deserve the same kind of support and attention,” Laufer said, “and we were just chatting about that and I joked that I had this feeling for a while that I wanted this kind of cultural arts revolution and never really knew what that would look like. Then I think they proposed it.” Laufer’s main job is as a facilitator, but it is also a place where he can work on his own, nonfiction project.

The club is meant to be a place that has all sorts of art where artists can feed off of each other.

With the given support they have also received the recognition of the administration and also other teachers such as sixth grade English teacher George Drury.

“I think that it has the potential to become a regular site for the exploration of all sorts of arts, involving people from throughout the school,” Drury said about the the new club, “and that is very promising.”

Rooney and Lerner met with the art department heads to involve as many creative people as possible.

They hope to collaborate with the activism club and to produce material for future issues of Phaedrus and for the talent show. At the end of the year, they would like to do an “installation project” where pieces made throughout the year are put on display.