People tend to talk a lot about how Chelsea High School shines for its academic and athletic achievements. While academics and sports both help make up what we are here at CHS, a program often overlooked is the CHS art program. 

With an abundance of classes ranging from foundations of art to advanced photography, it’s safe to say that there’s never a lack of creativity at CHS. However, with the upcoming ‘24-’25 school year, teachers Claire Popovich and Carrie Hillis are prepared to introduce a new source of creativity with the Introduction to Sculpture class.

 “It’s essentially a new intermediate art class focused on creating art in the third dimension,” Popovich said. However, unlike ceramics, Popovich added, “We will be using any materials except clay… So, paper mache, book arts, wearable arts, installation art, fiber art, anything that encompasses working in three dimensions.” 

With the lack of a jewelry-making class, both Hillis and Popovich are hoping that students will take advantage of this new class.

 “Students who are interested in three-dimensional art and who have been learning about it with jewelry but aren’t interested in primarily working with clay will want to explore [the sculpture class],” Popovich said.

When asked why they chose to co-teach the class they both expressed similar joy. 

  “I wanted to work with Ms. Hillis because she’s an amazing artist, and she has expertise in elements of art that I don’t. Not to mention she’s an amazing coworker and so fun to work with.” Popovich said. Hillis went on to express “We feel like we both have different things to offer our students and that that would only come from complementing each other and our skill set and what we’re interested in, so we thought, why not? It’d be really fun to be able to utilize this room in the format that it is.”

With the amount of dedication put into the art program by both Hillis and Popovich, it’s no surprise that they’ve managed to accomplish so many achievements in recent years. 

“We’re constantly looking at the classes we’re teaching and the projects we’re teaching and reevaluating based on what our students want, need and ask for, so we don’t consider ourselves ever to be done; we’re always looking for ways to learn from one another.”