The map in the Revere High School (RHS) guidance office continues to be poked with pins as each senior commits to a college. The map displays where seniors are headed, with each pin representing a unique journey of what led them there.
Senior Tommy Long, vice president of student council, has used his passion for art and design to impact the school in visible and lasting ways from designing student council apparel to building interactive projects like the college pin map. Through both leadership and creativity, Long focuses on making art that represents and includes all students.
“I’ve probably been interested in art [for] as long as I can remember. I remember I used to take clay classes when I was like six years old. . . . When I was asked, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ In kindergarten, I wrote an artist. I thought it was funny how I never really changed my mind,” Long said.
Long’s early certainty has carried into high school, where he has explored multiple forms of art in many different ways. He has taken various classes both within school and some outside of school, and has worked on independent projects as well as embraced leadership opportunities. Out of all the mediums in art, Long prefers hands-on and experimental work.
“I like working with my hands. I like sketching things out. I like doing material studies, like going out and finding different things to work with. I like experimenting, so I think 3D is the best avenue for all of that,” Long said.
Most of Long’s projects stem from his classes as he is prompted with an assignment and needs to come up with an idea to fit the criteria; however, his pin board idea was inspired by a world map at a restaurant he went to that marked where customers were from. Long likes to combine a lot of what he sees around him to create his pieces.
“Like with my 3D projects, I would combine animals with materials, like a squirrel out of wire or a woodpecker out of bark, just trying to show what I could do with different materials,” Long said.
Long utilizes his creativity and leadership to enhance inclusion among his classmates. He is the vice president of the student council and on the executive board.
Revere student council adviser Beth D’Amico discussed making and selling t-shirts, and Long volunteered to create the design. He also took on responsibilities beyond the design itself. Long handled all of the communications between the t-shirt printing company and all of the students purchasing the shirts.
“Tommy has a genuine concern for everyone and is very inclusive. . . . He likes to include people and is very considerate to his peers, and you can see that in the projects he chooses to create,” D’Amico said.
Long’s desire to stir schoolwide involvement influenced his approach when designing the student council shirt.
“I wanted something that anyone could wear. . . . I didn’t want it to be specific to one group, like just sports or just music. I wanted something broad that could represent the whole school,” Long said.
Even within the creative process, Long had to work within guidelines, including specific school color codes and limitations on the number of colors used in the design.
“Revere has a really strict color code you’re supposed to use. You’re supposed to use the exact hex code of blue, their blue, their royal blue, their scarlet and their white. I have to make sure I use those. . . . Because this was a commissioned piece for the student council, when I was making this shirt, I was told to only feed a maximum of three colors, because for us, the price would go up too high,” Long said.
Long also designed a cancer awareness t-shirt that ten RHS staff members wore when they joined strides against breast cancer and participated in their cancer awareness walk in October at Wade Oval in Cleveland.
Between his artistic ability, leadership and concern for others, Long manages creative and logistical aspects of his projects, making an impact on those around him.
The final student council and cancer awareness t-shirt designs are posted on Long’s art and design Instagram. He created the account in November to display all of his creative work including drawings, sculptures and graphic design projects, giving others a broader view of his creativity.
“I felt like I didn’t really show [the more creative] side of myself outside of just the art show at the end of every year. I wanted to be able to have more people appreciate some of the things that I do. Right now I’m in an AP Drawing class, so a lot of [my posts are] AP Drawing, like colored pencil drawings, but I try to include a lot of stuff from last year in my previous works as well, like my 3D sculptures and some design, like the shirts and pins I made,” Long said.
Long posted every day for about a month and a half in order to encompass all of his previous work. He now posts as he completes projects, keeping the account updated.
Long’s mom Elizabeth Long is a guidance counselor at RHS. She remembers Long as always being creative and connected to art even before kindergarten.
“He has always been very hands-on, creating, designing [and] building. . . . When it’s something you love, you just find time for it, and that’s something we’ve always seen with him,” she said.
Long has prioritized the arts in his academics by making sure his school days are art-focused just as much as his other core subjects, even when that meant studying over summer break.
“As an eighth grader kind of thinking about building out his high school schedule, Tommy was even willing to [take some classes] during the summer so that he could make sure he could fit in art every year, all year,” Elizabeth Long said.
Long devotes hours of his daily life towards his projects, and it is visibly noticeable by his family, friends and teachers.
“Tommy said to me something like, ‘When you’re doing what you love, it doesn’t feel like work,’ [or] something along those lines. . . . There’s that concept of like, what is it you’re doing when you lose track of time? A lot of times, we’ll see Tommy working at the kitchen table on an art project for hours where he’s using this sander or the hot glue gun or all these just different materials to kind of experiment with, and so when it’s something you really enjoy doing, you kind of find time for that,” Elizabeth Long said.
Long looks for ways art can enhance the places where he is and make an impact on those around him. This year, Elizabeth Long has enjoyed being able to see how Long has been taking his art and working to infuse his creativity on other projects like in student council or the pin map. She has noticed that her son’s work often reflects a deeper level of thought than people initially perceive.
“When you look closer, you see how intentional everything is; even the materials he chooses are connected to what he’s trying to represent, and there’s a lot of thought behind every decision,” Elizabeth Long said.
Long is planning to pursue a future in industrial design, specifically product design at the University of Cincinnati. He plans to use his degree to work in the entertainment industry to create prop designs like lightsabers or shields.
“[Product design is] designing how things feel in the hand, like how pencils feel. I could design chairs, shoes, cars, salt and pepper shakers, anything you could tangibly hold is what I design,” Long said.
The exposure that Long has had to all of the different art disciplines has helped him narrow down the direction he wants to go in with art.
“Once he took the AP 3D art class last year, that’s what really solidified that he wanted to go into industrial design. When he went to an industrial design week-long camp at Cincinnati through their DAAP program, he was able to see all that he could do with industrial design,” Elizabeth Long said.
At RHS, Long is already starting to display the skills and type of character needed for this area of interest.
“I could absolutely see [Long] doing [industrial design]. . . . He’s already shown that he can take a space or an idea and completely transform it using what he has. [For example], at our Boo At The School event, he transformed two classrooms into a Halloween maze, so yes I could see he’d be very good at that,” D’Amico said.
Currently, Long is working on another pin project as a commission piece for a motorcycle group in Akron that one of the school custodians at RHS is a member of.
“They wanted me to do a pin for Lifetime members, so I just designed a pin, I sent them over the file for it and then they are going to find somewhere to make and distribute it,” Long said.
Long additionally has two animal heads in progress to finish the set of the other animal heads he created last year.
“I have a welded snake head, and I’m doing a sewn fabric fox head as well. . . . I also have a plan for some of the 2D works I want to do, but I’m still trying to figure out what pieces I actually want to lock in and finish,” Long said.
From childhood art classes to school-wide projects, Long has continued to build on the same passion he has had since he was young. Now, that passion is not only shaping his future, it is also leaving a lasting impact on the community around him.
