MCA Denver loves teens! We like to celebrate their amazingness, their willingness to take risks, and of course, the cool and unique ways they express themselves creatively. We like to feature creative works submitted by teens in our community on this blog. Below are recent submissions by Piper Moss, Chloe Rios, and Elijah Morgan. 

Piper Moss

Celestial Bodies

We touched each other like lovers do:

your arm tossed around my waist,

our fingers absentmindedly intertwined.

We were the only stable things

in a world falling into a black hole,

sinking further every second

we spent looking into each other’s eyes.

I was your sun:

you hid when I burned too brightly,

and chased me across the sky

for as long as I was outside your reach-

and you were my moon:

almost never fully there,

claiming my light as your own,

but worth worship regardless.

Piper: My submission is a fiction poem. I enjoy reading novels in verse and thought it would be interesting to try something of that sort on a smaller scale. I also like to play with conventional tropes and clichés; thus, Celestial Bodies was conceived with its reversal of traditional expectations of what it means to be someone's sun. (The rest of the space-themed metaphors followed naturally.) Initially after writing it, I was unsure whether this poem was worth putting out into the world. After letting it stew for a few months, I decided I had nothing to lose and I sent it off to a critique partner.  Now here I am, telling you how I got to this point. 

Chloe Rios

Between

Chloe: Between creates a dream-like, supernatural world that makes the viewer question what exactly is going on. The piece is a 16x20 acrylic painting with added elements of oil pastel for more color and depth. My original intention was to work with the contrast between realism (a classical subject matter, the skeleton,) and abstraction ( the background and concept). The opposing views within the arts community in regards to these two art practices are something that I disagree with because I believe that all forms of art are valid, and you can find harmony even in different things. The process was extremely tedious as I worked on it from December 2021 through late March 2022. I've discovered a new side of my creativity with this piece, and it is something I hope to continue working with in the future. 

Elijah Morgan

Flower Bouquet

Elijah: This drawing was inspired by artists in today's time who use bright colors to portray simple objects, such as a vase filled with flowers. Although many of these works are created with paint, I prefer to use colored pencils in my art because of the expanded variety in shades it brings to my art,  and I am able to better express better to express myself within the piece. I also wanted this to be simple, which is why it lacks background and doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of flowers. I am very fond of this piece because of my technique with the colored pencils, and the texture it brings to the leaves and vase.

If you are a teen with something to say or share, we encourage you to submit your artwork with us for a chance to be featured on our teen blog or on the television screen in the Teen Idea Box here at MCA Denver!

Teen admission to the museum is always free, and now when you visit, you can receive a free print or sticker of the newly designed Teens Always Free campaign by artist and former Failure Lab participant, Nia Musiba.