Tampa Prep Seniors Gabe Fernandez ’25 and Madison Decker ’25 have been chosen to serve on the Tampa Museum of Art’s Youth Council!
The Youth Council works year-round with an extensive, five-week summer session and meetings every week during the school year to plan programs targeted towards other teens in the Tampa Bay area. Students also learn about careers at the Museum and work with Museum personnel to execute their events. The first Youth Council was established in 2016 with 12 Hillsborough County high schoolers.
We recently talked with Gabe about his experience.
TP: How were you chosen to sit on the Tampa Museum of Art Youth Council?
GF: “Near the end of the last school year, the Education Department at the Tampa Museum of Art opened applications to become a part of the program. This application process was highly selective and consisted of a form submission detailing our aspirations to help lead a community of young creatives at the museum and an in-person interview. I was thrilled to be chosen!”
TP: What made you want to get involved?
GF: “I wanted to get involved because of my personal experience as a young artist. Art has been my form of self-expression for as long as I can remember, and creating art has allowed me to connect with myself and form deeper relationships with others and the world around me. I wanted to become a member of the Youth Council so that I could help provide a community to connect young artists and give them a space and platform to form these relationships and engage and educate those from our generation who may not be artists or just simply have appreciation for art. The museum is a great place and great community, and I want to welcome everyone in my age group to it!”
TP: Why is art important to you?
GF: “Art has always been my form of self-expression and allowed me to form a relationship with myself and so many others that I’m extremely grateful for. Art is an incredible tool to promote understanding of one’s self, what they stand for, what they love, literally any message you could possibly want to convey, and I’ve found great purpose in using it.”
TP: What are your responsibilities of being on the council?
GF: “In general, our responsibilities as a Council are to plan and execute events that attract a teen audience to the museum and build, engage, and educate a great community of young artists about art. We spent a very large portion of our summer learning about the inner workings of the museum and planning a year of events for this current school year, which we are now working to perfect and successfully offer.
As a council, we split up all of the tasks and work that has to be done in order for these events to run smoothly according to everyone’s strengths as a team. Personally, I end up taking a lot of the marketing duties — running our social media, creating promotional media i.e. our flyers, posters, zine, sending the emails — as naturally, I have a flair and the skillset (graphic design & a few years of being a social media icon, LOL) under my belt to engage and attract the community we are trying to reach.” And I enjoy doing it! So much!
TP: What are your plans after graduation?
GF: “As a council, our plans for after graduation are to figure out the future of the Youth Council. After the seniors are gone, who will help our current Junior members and join the team? We will open applications and promote the program to other upperclassmen in the Tampa Bay area who are passionate about taking up the role as Youth Council members and continuing the legacy of such a great program.
By the time I graduate, I hope to have a future studying film or some form of video arts at a prestigious university. I look forward to my future as an artist, and also as someone who continues to engage and excite others about the arts beyond my time as a Youth Council member and hopefully for the rest of my life.”
You can visit the annual Teen Exhibit at the Tampa Museum of Art, now through December 14, 2024. Congratulations to the following Prep students, whose work has been chosen for inclusion:
Julia Frankel ’29
Ki Ferrill ’26
Avery Burns ’25
Ava Fratello ’25
LLi Lechman ’25
