QC student paints a colorful career path

By Randy Grider
randy@casscountynow.com

Chatting with Queen City High School senior Sarah Upchurch, it’s easy to see her potential for a successful career. She’s an aspiring artist, who recently sold her first painting, yet is grounded enough in reality to see the art world can be challenging without a plan.
Sarah, an honor student in the gifted program, earned a Presidential Scholarship that will allow her pursue a degree so she can teach art to others while she continues building her own portfolio. But her backup plan is to possibly teach math – one of the many subjects in which she excels – or science while waiting for the right art job to come along.
“I want to go into art education,” Sarah said. “I love art. I want to keep doing it. If I can make a career out of it, that’s what I’m going to do. I want to teach at a small school like Queen City.”
Sarah’s passion for art started with Jell-O paint in pre-school, but took off when she took her first art class as a freshman.
“The art room is my second home,” Sarah said.
Sarah’s foray into serious art has progressed steadily over the past four years, encompassing several media that include sketches in pencil, colored pencil, pastels, charcoal, watercolor, acrylic and mixed-media.
“My favorite medium is acrylic,” Sarah said, who also favors nature scenes as the subject of her work.
But it was an abstract painting that earned Sarah her first sale. She explained it was an art class project that took place over several weeks. The assignment was to paint without a final product in mind over a period of 20 classes. The painting she has quietly titled as “Garden of Eden” was bought by long-term substitute teacher Carl A. Bandy, who will be a fulltime chemistry teacher at Queen City next school year.
Bandy said he has an art background, having taught some classes, and he was impressed by Sarah’s painting.
“I was captivated by the colors, and the theme,” Bandy said. “I was amazed that such a young person could create such a great piece. She started off with nothing in mind, but I believe things in the paint about her have shown through like the music notes (Sarah is in the band) and a Christian. Since its abstract, you have to search for those things, but they show through.”
Bandy said he proudly displays the work in his home office.
“I was thrilled,” Sarah said of having someone purchase her work.
Sarah said she was inspired by Amy Giles, her art teacher at Queen City. Giles has high praise for Sarah’s artistic ability and overall drive to succeed.
“I was surprised when Sarah told me that I inspired her to become an art teacher,” Giles said. “Sarah is one of those rare birds that has a little bit of everything going for her. She’s dedicated, a hard worker, artistic and very gifted in math. She has worked hard for everything she’s got. I look forward to seeing where she goes in her career.”
Sarah has created dozens of paintings, sketches and other artwork, many of them she gives as presents to family members for Christmas or other special occasions.
Sarah’s mother, Lisa Upchurch said her daughter is very dedicated whether it’s doing homework or creating art.
“When a lot of kids were outside, at the lake or on vacation during Spring Break, Sarah was in her room painting or sketching,” Lisa said