Meet Catherine Carreon, a Loretto Academy senior and one of the many talented students representing our school.

She came to Loretto as a freshman and has been a member of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) since her junior year.

Although she was very recently inducted into NAHS, her talent has quickly been recognized, and she is this year’s NAHS vice president.

Her responsibilities as vice president are keeping track of announcements and contributing to NAHS projects such as Jingle Mingle and the construction of the altar for Dia de los Muertos. 

Carreon is also one of 13 students enrolled in AP Art this year, a class in which she will be developing a professional portfolio of her work to be submitted at the end of the year.  

Ms. Jensen, Loretto’s art and graphics teacher, said, “She’s definitely amazing at what does; she’s above her years.

“She’s a very calculating, intelligent artist; she plans, measures, and researches very well, which is important because to be a strong artist you can’t just be flying by the seat of your pants all the time.”

One of Carreon’s sculptures, Under the Bed, won first place at the art show that NAHS hosted at Loretto Academy last year.

However, Carreon initially struggled with the intention and construction of the winning piece; it took several long hours and many drafts.

Carreon said, “My third try was the final piece, and even then I wanted to perfect it more or scrap it and do it all over again. 

“One problem I had was that we could only use cardboard for the assignment, and I wasn’t used to just using one medium; a lot of my work is multimedia.

“Another problem was the meaning behind the piece; my original idea was very personal, but I didn’t want to be so exposed in sharing its meaning so I altered it to make it more ambiguous in meaning.”

Another one of Carreon’s pieces is currently located in the glass display outside of the high school office, a piece she made for AP Art.

Her love of art reaches back into elementary school, and she cites her grandfather as one of her greatest influences.

“I’ve always been doing art and gluing things together with hot glue; my grandpa helped me experiment in different media by teaching me to wood carve and use power tools.”

As she mentioned, Carreon is experienced in working with a wide range of materials.

“I’ve worked with wood and its different textures, with stones, with paper mache, with pottery clay, and with tin; I’ve also gotten into jewelry making, wire working, sewing, and knitting.

“For 2D media, I’ve worked with graphite, charcoal, acrylic paint, water paint, oil paint, colored pencils, markers, and last but not least, I love crayons.”

Ms. Jensen said, “Art is the one place that motivates her; that’s where she has a lot of confidence, and who could blame her?

“Her craftsmanship is impeccable, and as a sculptor you need that; she never flounders, she focuses from the start of the piece to the end of the piece.

“The thing about Catherine, though, is that she’s not just a sculptor; she can do most everything — she’s a Renaissance artist, and she inspires me.”

Carreon continues to share her artistic expertise with the Loretto community through her role in NAHS and her enrollment in both AP Art and graphics classes.

Congratulations on being selected for artist of the month, Carreon!