Spurred on by Lane’s art teachers, Rebecca Symonds, Div. 573, has discovered her talent of painting.

She started painting on finger paint paper, which is thicker than regular paper, and then lost inspiration after that phase. She started again when her mother made her choose between being a music or an art major. Symonds chose art because she already plays the piano.

Symonds’ first art class was Introduction to Art with Ms. Friedman, who put her painting in the “Hall of Fame.” This is when she realized she had a talent for painting.

“Mrs. Simonis (another one of Symonds art teachers) showed me that I really had something and that I could do better,” Symonds said.

She pointed Symonds towards AP Studio Drawing with Mr. Ceh.

“Mr. Ceh is a tough teacher,” Symonds said. “He’s not going to tell you something is good when it’s not. Receiving criticism from him really helps. He even told my parents that I have a talent, which I don’t think they really realized until one of the teachers here told them.”

Art can be a relaxing pastime for Symonds, but can also be stressful.

“I had a still life junior year that I worked around 80 hours in class,” Symonds said. It was due when I got back from winter break and I was no where near done. I woke up at five o’clock in the morning and worked till eight to get it done. When I got back to school, no one else had worked on it. They had all realized how much work it was. They were all like, ‘Really? You worked that hard on it?’ But it was important to me to get it done.”

The same still life was offered to be put in the alderman’s office gallery for the summer, but when Symonds came to pick it up she found out the basement had a flood and damaged her painting.

“I was really upset. It was damaged, something that I worked over 80 hours on, because someone wasn’t responsible,” Symonds said.

 Symonds is going to be paid by someone to paint a portrait of one of their family members.