Like white fog, a cloud of paint drifts away from Katrina Liu (12) as she sprays a sculpture. Focused, she steps back to survey her work from every angle, her glasses catching the afternoon sunlight, and moves back in when she finds a spot she’s missed.

Throughout the rest of the art building lie other pieces she’s been working on — dozens of CDs she tied together with fish line, a tube full of candy wrappers, a cardboard tray filled with little scraps of clay she glazed and fashioned into ornaments.

“She likes to use things that are already there,” said art aide Alice Schwartz. “She’s very creative about reusing things and being economical.”

Katrina often comes up with ideas that involve using leftover materials, according to Schwartz. Once, when Schwartz was sewing a costume for her daughter, Katrina asked for the leftover scraps to put on her dog.

“She asked me to show her how to sew, but I never had a chance yet,” Schwartz said.

Katrina’s interest in art began at an early age early age, when her parents, who believed in the idea of a “well rounded individual,”

“My parents are all about the well rounded individual, so as I kid I took art classes and piano lessons,” Katrina said.
She was also influenced by her family’s intrinsic proclivity for art, observing her grandmother and great uncle’s painting and her mother’s drawing.

Katrina’s preferred branch of visual art is sculpture, which she picked up at a UCLA summer camp in ninth grade.
“I don’t know why I applied to the sculpture class, but I did, I guess just to try things out, and I just couldn’t let go from there,” she said.
Since then, sculpture has become an outlet for her thoughts.

“At some point I was going through a hard time emotionally and then I started volunteering with the Palo Alto Art Center. Just being around the kids and seeing them discover new ways they could make their ideas concrete – that was just kind of what got me going again, knowing that I can be helping others in a way. “Art for me is a way to say things I really don’t say, so if I can show kids that they have that ability to speak out and just do whatever they’re imagining, that would be great,” Katrina said.

In addition to the work she does outside of school, Katrina takes sculpture classes at Harker. Sophie Kassaras (11) met Katrina at one of these classes last year.

“My first impression was that she was really quiet,” Sophie said. “She kind of sat in the corner alone and was really quiet. Everyone else was talking and she was just doing her own thing.”

During the course, Sophie often asked Katrina for help when she wasn’t sure what to do. Ultimately, the two began to talk more often and got to know each other.

“She’s really passionate about art and art history and the things that she does,” Sophie said. “Watching her talk about it makes your day, in a way.”

Christie Chen (12) bonded with Katrina in another art class when they were both in seventh grade.

“We talked a lot about music, and she got me into K-POP,” Christie said. “I thought she was so cool, because she did archery and she did art. She was just so unique. I never really met anyone like her before.”

As Christie became closer to Katrina, she has noticed her kind hearted nature.

“She’s just such a true soul, if that makes sense. She really wants to help others and I can tell how much she cares about other people,” Christie said.

During a rough time of her own, Katrina found a new reason to sculpt when she started volunteering as a studio assistant at the Palo Alto Art Center.

“Being around the kids and seeing them discover new ways they could make their ideas concrete – that was just what got me going again, knowing that I can be helping other people,” she said.

Katrina approaches her work with care inside and outside of school. When she was instructed to draw a lightbulb with one light source, for instance, Katrina sat in a closet with a single light on for hours, sketching her subject with precision in order to give her pieces a significance.

“Most of us are just trying to get through the class, but she wants [her pieces] to mean something,” Sophie said.

Last year, Sophie and Katrina entered the ArtNow annual high school art competition held by the New Museum Los Gatos. The theme was “Perspectives”, so students were asked to submit works that explored a certain viewpoint. Katrina submitted a sculpture of a torso she made for their class, while Sophie submitted a sculpture of a book.

Sophie wrote a short story and placed it in the book, inspired by Katrina’s use of quotes from her friends.

“It was something I probably never would have thought of had I not been inspired by Katrina’s art,” she said.

Katrina inscribed the quotes on two pieces she made for her sculpture class last year: a torso she submitted as her final work of the class and a whistle she made for a project that required students to make an ordinary object larger, both of which discussed sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement.

“She’s very passionate about that, even if she’s not always immediately talkative about it,” Raymond Banke (12) said.

Though Katrina often creates pieces related to social justice, her focus on such themes has developed with her self-understanding.

“She has learned enough about herself to know what she needs to express,” Katrina’s friend Katherine Tian (12) said.