Mona Jain Middle of Lakewood Ranch hosts its second annual Art Show

By Madison Bierl
| 11:45 a.m. May 19, 2025

East County
Schools

Sally Eckelman, a seventh grade student at Dr. Mona Jain Middle School, was looking for strange, inspirational photos as she was brainstorming about what sort of digital art project she wanted to create for the school's second annual Art Show May 15 that was presented by the DMJ Art Department.

She decided to use balloons, one fully intact and one that pops.

"It represents a harsh and toxic breakup," Eckelman said. "He's disinterested and her whole world is shattered."

Katelyn Reyes, the digital arts and technology teacher at Mona Jain, said she has seen Eckelman's creativity and technical skill grow tremendously. She said what stands out most about Eckelman is her kindness and quiet confidence.

"I am so proud to hear how clearly and thoughtfully she speaks about her work, explaining not just what she created, but how and why," Reyes said.

Reyes said it is rare to see that level of insight and articulation in a middle school student.

"Even if Sally doesn’t always see it in herself, I see a dedicated, thoughtful artist who’s just getting started," Reyes said. "I couldn’t be prouder of her."

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Katherine Lo, a seventh grader in digital art, created a piece inspired by video games and titled the game she created "Knight's Revenge." She generated the background using artificial intelligence.

Ava Hempfling, a sixth grade student, wants to be a marine biologist. She decided to draw her favorite sea animal — two tiger sharks surrounding her favorite flower, a hibiscus.

Nathan Craw, a seventh grader, created two pieces involving planets. The earth piece used triangles and was created using Adobe Illustrator. The smaller piece represents water vs fire and was created using Photoshop.

Mollie Schaeffer, an eighth grader at Mona Jain, created three pieces that go together. The top is a realistic city landscape, the middle is abstract and the bottom is a nonobjective version of the same concept.

Sally Eckelman, a seventh grade student, created a digital art piece with balloons representing a harsh breakup. The balloon with a top hat represents a man who is disinterested, while the popped balloon is a girl who is floating away as her world shatters.

Mariella Martinez Reyes, a seventh grade student who plays violin, and Elizabeth Argo, an eighth grader who plays viola, provide musical entertainment while visitors look at the art.

Amelia Evancic, Denise Mueller, Katelyn Reyes and Scarlett Evancic have been planning the logistics of the art show or creating art for it since August.

Nicasia Fayer, an eighth grader, thinks manatees are cute and has always wanted to pet them. She used acrylic markers, pencil and black pen.

Alexa Pressimone, a seventh grader, created a picture of an otter in Adobe Illustrator by tracing over a photo of an otter using shadows to determine where different colors were needed.

Father Nicolas Alvarado, brother Diego Alvarado, seventh grade artist Olivia Alvarado and mother Cristina Urizar enjoy looking at the art. Olivia Alvarado created the two arctic wolf pieces and her father Nicolas said he is in awe of her talent and doesn't know where she got it from.

Olivia Alvarado, a seventh grader at Mona Jain, says arctic wolves remind her of the moon and she loves the moon. The top piece is a colorful, abstract version of a wolf, while the bottom was created to be more realistic.

Mona Jain siblings Matthew Lo (6th), Katherine Lo(7th) and their mother Stacy Chen enjoy checking out all the art, but especially the video game inspired piece made by Katherine.

Mollie Schaeffer and Avery Wienczkowski are both eighth graders who worked together to create a bright and colorful piece with planets featuring a bull, their school's mascot. Schaeffer said they wanted it to be cartoonish and used bold outlines to make it pop.

Avery Wienczkowski, an eighth grader, uses jellyfish as her inspiration and created one piece that is realistic, one that is abstract and one that in nonobjective.

Scarlett Evancic, a seventh grade student, chose to create pieces of wasps. The piece on the left is more realistic with the coloring and fluff shown. The one on the right is more abstract.

Sophia De La Cruz wanted her work to give off 1980's retro vibes. Her goal was to create it to be like an old worn out shirt.

Amelia Evancic, a seventh grade student, took inspiration from the 1847 painting "The Fallen Angel" by French artist Alexandre Cabanel. Evancic says she prefers working with pencils because it allows more freedom to make mistakes.

Elizabeth Argo, an eighth grader who plays viola, was asked the day of the art show during second period to perform at the art show.

Katelyn Reyes, the digital arts and technology teacher, says has enjoyed "watching the kiddos blossom into the artists that they are."

Aiden Storey, a sixth grader at Mona Jain, created two pieces in Photoshop for the show. The smaller features Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. The second piece was created by spinning a wheel to determine it was to be an arctic scene using white blue and yellow as the colors to represent his birthday, which is April 18.

Mariella Martinez Reyes, a seventh grade student, has been playing violin for six years. She says she wants to do it for the rest of her life and dreams to go to a school such as Juilliard.

Denise Mueller, middle school traditional art teacher, and Katelyn Reyes, middle school digital art teacher, have been planning the art show since the beginning of the school year. Mueller says seeing all the art up together was a "proud mama moment."

author

Madison Bierl

Madison Bierl is the education and community reporter for the East County Observer. She grew up in Iowa and studied at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University.