The miniature multimedia piece Yuliya Yaremenko clutches is a symbol for her life so far.
Titled My Journey as an Artist, the work was a school project assigned by her art teacher, Judi Gardnner, at Port Moody secondary.
The black spiral leads upwards to a blue flower with masks, representing her three "faces": The first, a copper mask, has a hard exterior and tends to be the one she exposes to the public; the second, a sculpty mask, is somewhat softer and is the side she mainly shows to her friends; while the third mask is hidden inside the flower and is her sensitive layer, made out of threads.
It's all about growth and discovering identity - "very cliché teenager stuff, I know," the plain-spoken 18-year-old Port Coquitlam resident said with a wave of her hand.
But, a few years ago, Yaremenko admits she wasn't so sure about her talent. There was sadness and angst with her art, "which is very, very personal to me. I was having doubts that I could do it. It was a very hard time because all I wanted to be when I was growing up was an artist."
Yaremenko's mother taught her daughter how to draw in their native Ukraine. The family moved to the Tri-CIties when Yaremenko was eight and, three years later, she was in painting classes at the Wiseman Academy of Art on Austin Avenue, for seven years.
At PMSS, where she was an international baccalaureate (IB) student, Yaremenko's also excelled with other media like sculpting under Gardnner's wing. "She really pushed us to think outside the box," Yaremenko said.
Still, she remembered wrestling with the concept of making a living from art after grad. Then, in Grade 10, while watching a fashion television show, Yaremenko had an "aha" moment. She saw catwalks filled with garments by such makers as Alexander McQueen and Givenchy "and I thought, 'This is so expressive and creative. I can do this.'"
And so Yaremenko started to tailor her dreams around fashion design. In her Grade 12 year, she left the IB program to focus on her artwork. Her submissions to Emerging Talent XV - a juried art show at the Evergreen Cultural Centre that features more than 50 works from Grade 12 students in School District 43 - won her rave reviews and scholarships.
Earlier this year, as part of her portfolio for Kwantlen Polytechnic University, which offers a four-year bachelor's program in fashion design, Yaremenko took her craft in another direction and worked with a Port Moody seamstress to stitch together eight items.
She was accepted into the institution and, now, she has her sights on haute couture and, "of course, Paris! But really," she said humbly, "there are so many variables before you can reach that level. Who knows what will happen over the next few years? It's a lot of hard work."
If things don't pan out, "then I'll just do something else," she said with a shrug. "You never know until you try."
