Gallery • 5 Photos

PHOTO Courtesy: Claire Grob

"That piece was me practicing with lights and darks with a fountain pen. It doesn't have a deep meaning, I just wanted it to be a pretty picture." This piece won Grob the scholastic gold key.

Combining technical skill with abstract creativity, junior Claire Grob holds the spotlight this month as the InPrint’s artist of the month.

“Claire is an extraordinary artist,” art teacher Kristin McDowell said. “She is really amazing with a variety of materials. She has good technical skill but when you look at her art you see she has a lot of conceptual and creative thoughts behind her work. It makes you think that she’s a talented artist not only in terms of skills but also in concept. She has a lot of potential, a lot of skill, and a lot of drive. She’s going places.”

Art has given Grob a world she can create and control. The final product is her unique take on life made in small, careful pen hatching or concentrated strokes of oil pastel.

“It started when I was a kid,” Grob said. “I loved to draw things that I saw. People kept telling me that it looked pretty good and that they liked it, so I tried to improve and make something pretty. Art has made me look at the world differently. I’ll walk around and see really good lighting or nice colors and I’ll think ‘wow that would make a nice drawing’ or I’ll see a person and think that they would be fun to draw.”

Throughout her years in art, Grob has been able to delve into new mediums as well as alternative courses in her study.

“Claire has been going to the Flint Institute of Arts for the past three years,” McDowell said. “I recommended her and she applied and got into the three-year portfolio program course and has been taking it for the past three years. She got best of show for the 2019 spring art show. She also got an honorable mention for the western region division in the Scholastic Arts and Writing Competition.”

For Grob, art serves as a relief from the mental stress of everyday life and a unique alternative to her other classes.

“Art is a mental break from everything,” Grob said. “It’s the only class I’m excited to go to and I enjoy it, which isn’t something I can say about other classes. The portfolio development program at Flint has been interesting. It started out with more boring classes like still lifes, but then they started bringing in human models that we could sketch. It was really cool to sketch life right in front of you. The most recent class was a video editing class.”

Grob plans to continue with AP art and classes at the FIA. Her work, and the work of many local and regional artists, may soon be offered at the Cause & Effect Gallery in Fenton on 126 North Leroy Street.