“Amaya’s body of work is super well rounded. If you take a look at her projects over the last few years, it’s easy to tell that she’s comfortable with exploring different ways of approaching her artwork,” said friend Kasey Wolfe.

Junior Amaya Rutzel’s diverse body of artwork has secured her spot as artist of the week.

Most of Rutzel’s work revolves around creating colorful oil paintings, a skill she developed throughout art classes, including Intro. to Art and Painting.

“Personally, painting can be a creative outlet and a way for me to relieve stress at the same time. Although it was kind of unintentional, most of my paintings ended up being landscapes that I interpreted into abstract. I didn’t start out with the intention to take realistic scenes and turn them abstract, it just came naturally to me, and I guess it’s the way I like to reinterpret the world around me in a different way,” said Rutzel.

Rutzel is also in the process of painting a sprawling landscape mural on the walls of the school’s basement.

Senior Lucas Miller has watched the mural slowly grow day by day.

“I think it’s really interesting that students are allowed to do stuff like that here. The walls are like gray concrete, so I’m totally down for anything that makes them look more vibrant. I’ve also made a daily habit out of checking up on the mural to see how it has grown since yesterday,” said Miller.

Parallel to the immense diversity of her work is the diversity of activities that make up the bulk of her time at Susquehannock.

Aside from a packed schedule of classes, Rutzel is a member of National Honor Society, the Mini-THON committee, and the girl’s lacrosse team.

“Juggling all of my responsibilities can be challenging sometimes, or honestly, all of the time. I try to challenge myself as far as my classes are concerned, so I’m taking some AP classes, which means a lot of work for me outside of class where I already don’t have much time to begin with. From holding down a job to playing lacrosse in the spring, I don’t have a lot of free time, but it’s comforting to know that all of my hard work will eventually pay off,” said Rutzel.