Art Work by LHS’s Lilly Rohling is Selected for Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition

by Cassie Mattia

Loveland, Ohio – The talent in the community of Loveland and within the city’s school district cannot be denied! Over the past decade, there have been many LHS students and Loveland community members that have won both state and national awards for their talents. On May 18th, it was announced that another talented LHS student would be recognized for two pieces of artwork. Lilly Rohling, who will be a Senior at LHS was notified that her two artworks, “Shower Frenzy” (a colored pencil drawing) and “Inclination” (a video) were selected for the 2020 Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition. 300 winners were selected from 15 regions in the state of Ohio.

According to the press release sent out by Susanne Quigley, the Information Officer of Loveland Schools, “The exhibition, now in its 50th year, is open to all of Ohio’s 1,112 public and private high schools and dedicated to the educational and artistic advancement of talented youth in the state. The purpose is to provide budding artists with opportunities to advance their talent through scholarships and entering their work in a competition. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, no official awards ceremony – or actual exhibit – will take place this year.”

The Executive Director of the Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition, Thad Ricker also shared his thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affected 2020 student-artists.

“This was not the year that any of us had planned. One of the highlights of my school year is having the honor of recognizing Ohio’s talented young artists in person,” Ricker explained, “My heart is heavy for the 2020 student-artists who were selected for an exhibition that was never hung.”

Here at Loveland Magazine, we decided that we wanted the community of Loveland to get to know Lilly Rohling a little better so our very talented intern, Claire Beseler, orchestrated a few personalized questions to ask her. Below is our one-on-one written interview with Miss Lilly!

Please tell us about yourself!

Lilly   I’m finishing up my junior year at Loveland and have pretty much taken every art class including photography, sculpture, graphics, etc. It’s what I’m most passionate about.

How long have you been pretty serious about your art?

 Lilly    I started taking it seriously when I was about 13 and I’ve worked on it every day since:) Even if it’s just doing one small thing to keep my mind in a creative spot.

Have any Loveland teachers inspired you and your artwork?

 Lilly    Going into my senior year at Loveland I’ve had every teacher in the art department for at least one class and all of them have inspired me to better myself and have shown me through their own passion that no matter where you are in life, art is something you can always have as something that is special to you.

What are your future plans after LHS?

 Lilly    Hopefully studying in some sort of design program at an art school.

What are your future life goals? 

 Lilly    I’ll always have art as a way to express myself, and career-wise the dream is to be anywhere that allows me to think creatively, which I’m thinking right now will either be graphic design/illustration of some sort but I’m just going to see how things unfold in college and be open to whatever opportunities I come across. Mostly I just want to keep art in my life as a way to connect to myself and others.

What do you find most rewarding about creating art?

 Lilly    The process of thinking creatively and finding a way to communicate a part of myself in an interesting and unique way is what is most rewarding to me. I don’t worry much about the final product because if the process of doing it was an honest expression of myself, then the final product will reflect that, at least to me. It’s rewarding just to have the release of putting part of myself into a physical work of art.

Can you tell us about the two pieces of art that were selected to be featured? Which is your favorite piece?

 Lilly    Even though the still life took me weeks, I like the video because the idea is more personal to me. I was experimenting with stop motion for a class assignment and then thought it would be fun if I put two stop motion videos on top of each other. Then I started playing around with how the videos interacted and played off each other and it gave the project a different meaning. The process of trying something new and seeing where it takes you is what’s rewarding to me so I would say the video is my favorite. The still life is a fun capture of shower/bathroom products of mine that shows with vibrant colors the “frenzy” that can go into getting ready for the day.

Even though she titled her still-life “Shower Frenzy”, Inclination is quite the “Frenzy” too!

If you would like to see the full listing of this year’s Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition winners, click on the following link: http://www.govart.org/Documents/2020Winners.pdf.

CONGRATULATIONS LILLY! On behalf of Loveland Magazine and the community of Loveland we would like to express how proud we are of Lilly! We can’t wait to see what the future holds for her and her incredible artwork!