NCSSM grad's award-winning portfolio 'A Walk in Their Shoes' shines light on empathy, life's journey
Mac Barnes will major in computer science when he enrolls in college in the fall, but his storytelling talents are earning him national acclaim.
Through quilting, Barnes is bringing others' stories to life. Barnes, a Charlotte native, graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Math last weekend and created a powerful set of quilts in a series of works titled "A Walk in Their Shoes."
"I've been sewing all my life, so I decided to create a quilt of collective American identity based on historical themes of class and narratives," Barnes said.
Barnes is one of just 22 students selected in the nation to receive the Gold Medal Portfolio Award for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. He'll get to meet other award winners in June at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
For the pieces, common themes of immigration, overcoming struggle and finding peace are interwoven into the work, with the hope of highlighting the American experience. Barnes interviewed six people for the project and approached them not as an idea for his portfolio, but as a person with a story.
That sort of empathy led to more authentic work. Some of the quilts have quotes or lyrics embedded within the imagery.
"All of these quilts try to stay true to the entities of the people that they're about," Barnes said. "I look into what are some things that really speak to them, whether that's music, writing, movies or how they see the world."
One of Barnes' profiles included a woman who, when she was young, experienced a tornado in which her mother died from.
"This tornado destroyed their entire house, but she didn't have a single scratch on her," Barnes said. "It was a really moving story and that was probably my favorite interview to do."
Barnes carried a 4.99 GPA during his senior year. After the summer, he'll go to Washington University in St. Louis.
"The dream is to be able to continue to tell people stories and have this conversation about the understanding through art my major in computer science," Barnes said.
