Scituate student's concealed gems

Lila Debas has long known she wants to be an artist, but found her special interest when she took her Advanced Placement exam in studio arts during her senior year at Scituate High.

One part of the AP exam revolved around the theme of “concealment,’’ and those works helped Lila win the Scituate Arts Association's 2010 Scholarship. In an interview with The Globe, Lila talked about the AP exam, which included her photograph entitled “Altarpiece.”

The idea of ‘concealment’ is something I was interested in. It’s like a social camouflage that people -- not even consciously -- use all the time, where they try to deceive everyone else and not let people know who they really are. If someone knows who you are at your core, you’re really vulnerable, so people try to cover up, while they still have these things buried inside of them....

My brother went to school for painting, and when he graduated, he had these palettes all over the house with oil paints dried on them. They’re just big sheet of Plexiglas, and I found one that had paint all around it except for one spot where you could see through. So I set it up in the basement, and aimed a light toward the bottom left and toward the front for the flash.

Then I had my friend Carly Becker sit behind and show her face through the little part that wasn’t covered by paint. And she wrapped her arms around it and held the altarpiece.

I’m pretty sure that’s the Virgin Mary shown there. I’ve had it in my house a long time. Sometimes it’s on the mantle, sometimes it’s next to my bed, sometimes it’s on a bookshelf. We’ve also moved a couple of times, and it’s always come with us. When I was looking for props for this project, it was definitely something I wanted to use.

For the final product, I took 200 to 300 pictures that I had to sift through, then edit, then narrow them down to about six before choosing one....I used Photoshop and first took the saturation down to make it gray. Then I brought the colors back up so whatever colors were left got bright. Then I’d bring the saturation back down, so it was like bleaching -- the greens were really dull and the pinks were washed out. That was something I was looking for, something that looked organic.

I didn’t want Carly to look like she was posing, but I wanted it to seem like we caught her with a deer-in-the-headlights looks. I wanted her to look like she was a little bit isolated, and getting this attention was something that was completely shocking to her. But she was also looking sad, which was important.

For these pictures, I feel bad because Carly was so sore by the end. She has so much energy and emotion in her face, and that’s probably because she was not comfortable. I’d be like, ‘No, no, just push through a little bit more and you’ll be okay.’ And she’d say, ‘Oh, okaaaay.’

The Scituate Arts Association will present its 2010 Scholarship to Lila Debas on June 27, as part of the “Arts Alive” weekend series. Visit the association’s website for details.