There’s a young boy staring at his paper letting his pencil fly across in carefully calculated strokes, pressing down to create a stark contrast to the blank white background. And soon, every inch of this paper will have captured the young boys mind, all of his thoughts and ideas that formed in his head when his art teacher, Eric Champion, gave him this assignment.

Throughout his elementary years the boy expressed an interest in art, but it wasn’t until that particular art class, taught by that particular teacher where this particular boy named Jack Purcell would fall in love.

Now one year later, senior Jack Purcell is already about to start leaving his impression in this world. During spring break, he will be working with Jay Shinn, who is a geometrical abstract neon artist, and 11 other aspiring artists to create pieces to be shown in the Crow Collection of Asian Art.

“It sounds like a neat opportunity and I’m excited for it,” Purcell said. “The only thing is, [the concept] just possibly being a little over the top of my head just because I have never worked with glass before, or neon.”

A couple weeks ago Purcell’s art two teacher Nicole Franczvai notified Purcell’s class of the opportunity. He was handed a packet laced with questions about his art.

Why are you into art?

What roles do the arts currently play in your life?

Why are you applying for this opportunity?

Purcell’s responses were beautifully designed. They all had expressed how much art means to him and how he would benefit from this experience, and it worked.

“He’s intrinsically motivated, like he gets excited about something and you don’t have to motivate him to do anything; he’s going to take it up to another level that he finds interesting,” Franczvai said. “I think he thinks very, very differently about things. I think he has the knowledge to slice up things in a very unique way, in they way he approaches a problem and how he solves problems.”

That’s exactly what he did. Purcell took a simple 8 1/2-by-11 normal piece of paper, and he turned it into something great. He started off by 3D printing an enclosure that manipulated the bending of light to create a luminary effect on his name. It was almost as if his name was in lights, just like he strives to achieve someday.

“He is the type of artist that will never get tired of ideas and that ideas will always be surfacing in his head because he is wonderfully curious about this world,” Franczvai said.

Hopefully that’s what will happen in the meer week he will be working in a group. Purcell and  three or four of the other students who were given this opportunity will be placed together based on their strengths and weaknesses. Then they will be asked to create a piece of artwork, with the guidance and mentoring of Jay Shinn, to be premiered in the Crow Collection on Thursday April 14.

“I think he works about the same as the average student, I think he works smarter,” Franczvai said. “And so I think that he’s more efficient and he’s also very curious about things so he’s not afraid to try things and fail.”

Despite never working with neon before, Purcell has an excitement about the upcoming week. He hopes to do the best he can and crate a piece of artwork along with his group members that will inspire.

“I just, really I want to make neat stuff that people like, I want to make something that really visually appealing,” Purcell said. “I want something that pops out of a room that people can like look at and be like ‘oh look at that, that’s cool’ or something that invokes a little bit of emotion.”

Purcell will be working with his group on March 7, 9 and 11, and then again on April 11. All of the pieces will be shown on Thursday, April 14 at the Crow Collection from 6 to 8 p.m.