By: Tanvi Dange ’17
Section Editor

This summer, four Peddie seniors took part in the art department’s new Signature Experience in the Arts.

The Signature Experience is a program in which selected students follow their love for music, the visual arts, or theatre by taking elective classes in their respective interest at Peddie and through partaking in extracurricular activities outside of Peddie. In their senior year, the students provide a public exhibition or performance in their area of focus.

Andrea Ortega ’15, Ariel Shoykhetbrod ’15, Simona Newman ’15 and Talia Gualtieri ’15 completed projects over the summer in their artistic field of choice. Ortega and Shoykhetbrod both completed visual arts projects while Newman and Gualtieri did theatre projects.

Shoykhetbrod completed a two-week program in graphic design at Parsons The New School for Design. She commuted from New Jersey to New York City every day.

“I really enjoyed the program because it taught me new ideas about art that I never thought I would be interested in,” Shoykhetbrod said. “I loved learning from the other students in my class and the teacher made learning really fun and interesting. One of my favorite subjects was a class about typography. Even after the class was finished, I took what I learned and used it in my artwork. Overall, I loved the class and would definitely consider taking another class at Parsons next summer.”

Gualtieri took part in a summer program at the New York Film Academy for three weeks.

“I learned so much about both theater and film acting from doing all these things. I was able to push myself out of my comfort zone a lot, especially by doing tech-y stuff and going away to New York to act in front of a bunch of strangers.” Gualtieri said. “I can now really appreciate not just the acting part of theater and film, but every part of what goes into making a performance I can now register and admire the hard work coming from behind the scenes/camera.”