A piece of art – whether it be a drawing, a painting, a sculpture – can take hours, days, months, or even years for an artist to create. But after all the hard work is done, the artist has to decide what to do with it. Do they keep it and frame it? Give it to a loved one as a gift? Sell it? Auction it off for charity?

On September 8th the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) held a silent auction at the Ballard House –  a non- profit charity organization that provides free housing for people traveling to Texas for cancer treatment – where students could have their artwork auctioned off to help support their mission.

“The best part about the Ballard House was having our members get their artwork sold because not all members get to participate in art shows,” NAHS treasurer and senior Krisha Ruparel said. “So for them to be able to have that exposure since they’re not able to participate in Scholastic Vase and other competitions was really cool to see.”

Artists could choose to enter any piece that they wanted into the auction, but it was up to the bidders to decide how much the pieces were worth. Sales ranged from 50 dollars to over 200 dollars, but no matter how much money the students might have raised for charity, they still had to make the difficult choice of which piece they wanted to part with.

“[My piece] was a charcoal piece of a friend’s cat I did last year,” Senior and AP art student Amira Albar said. “It was more of a casual piece for me. So I thought it a perfect candidate for the Ballard House because someone else was gonna care for more than I was.”

However, not all pieces on display were destined to be auctioned. Artists were given the choice to just put their piece in the exhibition part of the show if they were not yet ready to part with their work.

“We had two different categories,” Ruparel said. “We had an art gallery where they could just review the pieces and then we had a silent auction where we had bid sheets for pieces that were opted to be sold.”

Not only did the auction provide an opportunity for students to use their talents to give back to the community, but it also gave them a chance to appreciate the artwork of their peers.

“I think seeing my fellow artists [and their] art pieces on display [was my favorite part] of the Ballard House.” Albar said. “I thought that was really nice, because there are a lot of people who I know are in art, but I’ve never really interacted with as much because we’re just not in the same classes. It was also really nice to just see the sheer variety of art in the auction and in the gallery.”