Maria Carrillo offers a Career Path in the Visual and Performing Arts, as well as provides a wide range of curriculum for students wishing to fulfill their Fine Arts requirement for graduation.
In Studio art, we offer classes for every level of interest and experience, from beginning art to A.P. Beginning students learn the design elements and principles which guide all visual art as delineated in the California State Framework. Students learn how to draw and shade; apply color and design principles; and read, research and report about artists and art movements. All studio art students receive sketchbook homework, as well as keep a portfolio of their work to take with them at the end of each year.
In A.P. art, students have the opportunity to do class assignments and problem solving as well as independent work to prepare for the A.P. exam in studio art in the spring. Students choose to submit either a Drawing, Design or Sculpture portfolio, and must create work delineated by the College Board for each portfolio.
All MCHS art student's work is displayed year round, both at school and in the community. Each year student volunteers help parents participate in hanging artwork for a spring Art's Showcase.
BIO
Catherine Borchert has been an educator in Sonoma County since the day she received her credential from Sonoma State University nineteen years ago. She moved to Northern California after earning her Bachelor's degree from Scripps College in Claremont, California, where she majored in Studio Art with a Humanities emphasis. Catherine put her way through college as a bartender in a comedy nightclub, and her one claim to fame from her undergraduate years is that she had carrot cake and tea with Jerry Seinfeld long before he made it big!
Catherine teaches painting, drawing, sculpture and mixed media at Maria Carrillo, and is especially proud of building a sculpture program on campus. Her students range from beginning artists to advanced and A.P. artists. Before joining the Carrillo staff eleven years ago, she taught eight years at Ridgway High School, an alternative school for at-risk kids. At Ridgway, she taught English, Yearbook, Leadership, and, of course, Art! She is right-brained, scatter-brained as well as plain brainy. She is also bilingual and has many years of experience working with ELL students and their families.
A single mother of two teenagers, Catherine lives in Healdsburg and carpools to school with four other Healdsburg staff members; "The Green Team!" She has been featured in several art shows over the years, and is currently framing works for her one woman show in December "Two by Three; Diptychs and Triptychs, 2008".
In her spare time she sculpts, paints, takes photographs, reads, and is currently writing a biography of Southern California Artist Paul Darrow, her mentor, a retired professor from Scripps College. Catherine's one wish is that there were still sabbaticals available for public school teachers so that she can finish writing the book before she retires in nine years!