An amazing artist. A role model. A talented swimmer. Molly Rubidge ’13 is well known for many of her distinct qualities, all of which are reflected in her artwork.
For her whole life, Rubidge had a passion for drawing, and would spend much of her time creating pieces in her free time. But this talented artist never took her work seriously until she came to high school. In freshman year, she took her first art class at Staples, and by junior year, she was sure she had a talent.
Helping her realize this gift was Camille Eskell, who teaches a wide variety of art classes from basic drawing to studio art.
“During the second semester of junior year, I took honors studio art for the first time,” says Rubidge. “It was under her guidance that I started to realize that I wanted to pursue a career in art.” Eskell taught Rubidge in all of the foundational classes, where she guided this talented artist through the process of improving her work more and more.
It was in honors studio, notes Rubidge, where she started taking more risks with her choices of subject matter and experimenting with things she’d never been exposed to before. “She’s always had a lot of faith in me and my capacity for improvement; she’s helped me to push myself out of my comfort zone,” says Rubidge.
This graciousness was not one-sided. Eskell thinks just as highly of Rubidge, claiming she “posses an intellectual bent and a sophistication. Her depth of thinking is evidenced in her interpretation of ideas.” Rubidge wowed her art teacher with her Honors Art Studio Project, in which the students had to interpret the theme “Food Attitudes.” Rubidge chose to depict the myth of Persephone and cast the heroine curled in the core of a pomegranate. The drawing, which was set in Hades, showed traces of the landscape above.
“The story of Hades and Persephone is a greek myth where Persephone, the daughter of Demeter (the goddess of the harvest), gets abducted by Hades so he can force her to marry him,” Rubidge explains.
Angela Simpson was also a key player in Rubidge’s art career. “Ms. Simpson has been a really positive, encouraging influence,” says Rubidge. “Her classes exposed me to mediums I may not have had the chance to experiment with on my own.” It was because of the diverse classes that the Staples art program offers that Rubidge was able to gain experience in different types of art. For Simpson’s silkscreen class this year, she brought in an expensive printing press that’s used for a variety of printmaking, giving students the opportunity to experiment with something they would otherwise be unable to.
As an alumnus of Simpson’s classes, Rubidge wants to dip her feet in a few different art pools. “I keep flip-flopping between wanting to do straight up fine art and wanting to do illustration — something in the vein of concept art or game development, maybe, or animation, or something else entirely. I have no clue yet!”
Demonstrated by their incredible praise, Rubidge’s art teachers are sure she is going to change the world of art. With an acceptance to Rhode Island School of Design under her belt, as well as being named a Commended Student in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program and featured multiple times in “Gretel Art” magazine, she has a stable foundation to build upon.
Rubidge said she is still unsure about what the future will hold for her, but she’s confident art is what she wants to do. Making the decision of attending a design school rather than a liberal arts college was a difficult decision, but she couldn’t be prouder of it. “I’m very glad I’ve ended up where I am, and I’m looking forward to what the future has to offer.”
