Arts Department Update

Introducing Heather

Heather Snowdon is one of the art teachers at Lowanna college. She teaches a diverse range of visual art subjects from Year 7 art to VCE Studio Arts. Heather is American and grew up about 150 kilometres outside of New York City. Heather pursued art in high school and learned to paint with oils at 14 and started showing work at local shows. She pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an interdisciplinary focus on printmaking and painting at Purchase College in NY. She has a degree in Fine Arts and a Master of Arts in art education. She started teaching in 2005 in the state of Florida. Her father-in-law needed help with his dairy farm in Australia, so their family sold everything they had, and headed to Gippsland with seven suitcases on a ship.

Heather opened her art studio on the farm in 2018. She continues to hone her craft and passion and immerse herself in the Gippsland region, drawing inspiration from native flora and fauna and balancing exploratory art, with more commercial work. She could not be happier to call Gippsland her home. Gippsland is one of the most beautiful places she has ever been and is bursting with artistic inspiration. Connecting with the flora and fauna of Gippsland has helped her connect to the new country and land that she is now a part of.

In a huge honour, Heather’s work was chosen as the feature artist for the 41st Tyers Art Festival. Heather has won several awards in recent years including Best of Show in the Tyers Art Festival and Best Acrylic at the Leongatha Rotary art show in 2022. She has recently entered work in the Zart National Teacher Artist Prize in which you can vote for popular choice on the Zart website. 

Heather started teaching at Lowanna College at the start of the 2021 school year. She believes that every student can paint and draw and loves to observe how her students develop their skills in her classes. The students have great enthusiasm at Lowanna College and challenge her to improve her own craft continuously.

Art

Year 7 students are working on drawing still-life compositions. 

Artwork by: Ella Whitehead, Chloe Van Den Dolder and Zekiya Glibanovic.

Year 8 students are working on their drawing unit in portraiture. Students are developing their shading skills and demonstrating their understanding of facial proportion. 

Artwork by: Summer Krznaric and Sienna Julin.

Year 9 students have just finished a unit in developing drawing technique skills. Students selected their favourite drawing technique to use in their CAT and demonstrate their observation and shading skills. 

Artwork by: Charlotte Wong, Rylee Clegg and Justine Parish.

Year 10 Ceramics students have been working on figurative pieces inspired by the artist Vipoo Srivilasa. 

Artwork by: Malaya Noppart and Kayla Lelievre.

Year 11 Students have been working diligently on their developmental drawings in their visual diaries. They are following the studio process and developing their inspirational images into drawings. These are works in progress. 

Art Club

After some calendar related adjustments, ART CLUB is now running on Tuesdays at lunch in room B20. This is an opportunity for art students to finish outstanding work they may have for their art subjects or for any student of Lowanna to simply explore some artistic activity in a safe supervised environment. Numbers are limited.

Music

Vet Music 2022

Lowanna is once again the VET provider for the Latrobe region in Certificate III Performance and Technical Production.  

These classes run all day on Wednesday and provide students with opportunity to complete a Certificate III course in Year 11 and 12. Students develop skills in set up and operation of sound reinforcement equipment and recording and the performing students explore a range of different musical styles and genres. 

Pictured are Lowanna students rehearsing for an in-class performance last Wednesday. These students will be performing in and around the school in the coming weeks. 

Musical Theatre International Aussie All Stars

Lowanna College Year 12 student Amelia Reid is heading to New York and Atlanta as part of the Junior Theatre Festival Australia Aussie All Stars. Amelia was a member of the cast for Class Act Productions 2021 production, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and she successfully auditioned for the Aussie All Stars cast. Amelia recorded a video audition where she presented the song If I Loved You and had to read a monologue set by the audition panel.  

Of the 120 plus auditionees only 28 were selected from across Australia. 

The Junior Theatre Festival, based in Newcastle, has been on the Class Act Production list of activities for some time now and many Lowanna students have performed with CAP.  

The Aussie All-Stars travel to New York where they work collaboratively with some of Broadway’s leading directors, performers and educators to develop and rehearse a performance piece. As part of the Aussie All Stars Amelia will have access to Broadway musicals, talk-back sessions with Broadway performers, exclusive performance workshops, masterclasses and of course will have enough time to explore the iconic sights of New York and then perform in Atlanta and California. The performance is adjudicated, and all cast members receive feedback, attend skill development workshops and get to watch performances of brand new musicals. A highlight of the trip is always meeting and hearing from some of the leading exponents of music theatre and past celebrities have included Zac Efron, Stephen Schwartz (composer of Wicked), Pasek and Paul (composers of Dear Evan Hanson), Megan Hilty, Casey Levy and Darren Criss. 

Anyone interested in performing with Class Act Productions can contact David Williams in the Music Department for more details. 

Musical Instrument Donations

A 2014 graduate of Lowanna College recently visited the music department and donated an acoustic guitar for use in our instrumental program.  

The music department has received two donations of musical instruments recently. These are a drum kit donation from Cooper Wilson, Lowanna College Captain 2021 and a guitar from 2014 alumni Caleb Clua. 

Caleb was an integral member of the music department performing in many bands and recording with our guitar teacher Zac Godwin in the highly successful band Lobes of Julia. Both boys have expressed the desire the instrument be used to benefit the broader program or to go to a deserving student.  

It is humbling that a past student would want to contribute to the development of a new generation of players. We are thrilled at the donation and look forward to having some of our new emerging guitar and drum players benefit from Cooper and Caleb’s generosity.