By Siyona Bordia ‘25, Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer

Collection of spirit boards in the NA hallway

Image courtesy of Ivie Drogin

Every year, people walk by the SAC hallway without so much as a second glance to the spirit boards. These boards play a large role in the final rankings of Spirit Week, and the people who pour endless hours into them do too. Most of the artists involved in the creation of these boards deserve much more recognition than they are currently receiving, and we as a community should express more appreciation for their hard work.

This year, the juniors won the best spirit board, using the clever “James Bond Juniors” theme to shape their creation. The painting depicts a looming figure clothed in black. The choice to have only white and black paints creates a contrast that is incredibly striking to the eye. Katherine Guo ‘24 explained the experience of painting the board as “a lot of effort but still enjoyable because everyone had the chance to work with their close friends and classmates.” School council members Jamie Shen ‘24 and Kieri Keys ‘24, along with Eva Sirichenko ‘24, Julia Polen ‘24, Avery Cohen ‘24 and Emily Horowitz ‘24 all made contributions to the final product. The juniors’ board showcased the amount of effort the students put in, executing their creative and well-thought out idea.

Similarly, the seniors worked hard on their very last spirit board under the theme, “Saddle Up Seniors.” In our interview,  Olga Zhukova ‘23 explained that there were many steps to the creation of the spirit board: “sending the ideas to council for approval, sanding the canvas down, picking different paints, and so on.” Olga, along with Nitya Gupta ‘23, Ashna Shah ‘23, Carmen Dai ‘23 and Lauren Siegel ‘23, worked hard to make this board the best the Class of ‘23 has ever created. 

Each board, including the “Sixties Sophomores’ ” beautiful pastel paintings, the “Farmer Freshmen’s” depiction of life on a farm and the “Middle School Movie Stars’ ” portrayal of an NA red carpet –illustrates different angles of creativity while bringing its own uniqueness to Newark Academy Spirit Week. Each artist, no matter the results of the competition, deserves recognition for the effort and energy they spent to attain their wonderful products. People should take the time to admire the artists’ beautiful work displayed in the SAC hallway all year. Olga Zhukova ‘23 hopes that “more and more people will appreciate the work that we’ve done, because the effort we put in always ends up with something we are proud of.”

This year’s spirit boards were beautiful, yet NA’s talented artists didn’t receive their much-deserved recognition. So next year, when each grade gathers their art supplies and starts painting their canvases, show your support, NA!