At age 18, Kenneth White, is a Stockton raised, self-described “average part time worker, student, family member, friend, and upcoming artist." I consider my self an upcoming artist because I have devoted all of my spare time and most of any other time I can find to art. Always working on another piece and never finishing the one before, I don’t think I would feel right if I didn’t have several pieces going at once. My work has been shown at a few different places while I was in high school. When I was in my junior year, I was taking an Art 3-4 class and I had my work in a show with the seniors in the Art 5-6 class and The World of Art class. Our show was held at Barnes & Noble in the local mall, and I have shown there a few times after that with my classmates. While in high school I was tested in art through a rigorous program I was in called IBO. This is a national program and we had one school to prepare for our exam. There was a minimum of 12 pieces due that had to be photographed and 20 pages of our workbooks, which was then sent over seas to the international home base of the IBO We had a tester fly in from over seas, and he conducted the test over a three day weekend in the school library.

My senior year I was the vice president for the art club at Franklin high school, and I took three art classes. I had a World of Art class, an art 5-6, and I also was a teacher’s assistant for one of my favorite teachers, which means that I had an extra period of art. I was very devoted to producing and learning more. That year for the 11th annual art calendar contest I entered two pieces, one winning first place and the other winning the cover. A few other awards I won that year were first place at the public library art contest, where I won third the year before, and I had a piece entered in the McKee art show held at the Haggin museum.

Two of the most influential people in my school life are my former teachers Mrs. Showell, the veteran, and the leading art department teacher. Mrs. Showell was my teacher three years running and taught me to always take chances and let anything get you down. The other is a new teacher who is full of nothing but love and who taught me to see the world a whole other way, her name is Ms. Mullen. I cut class every day just to sit in on her class and learn from her. These two are very strong, powerful, dare I say bull headed, women who stand for what they believe in and lives life to the fullest.