The Devil's in the Details

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Mandy Ma’s incredible winter drawing of Old Main in the snow.

Whether you are a Red Devil or a Maverick, the caroling soul of Miller School is palpable in Mandy Ma’s frosted depiction of a still day on the Hill. In the bite of winter, not a footprint pats the ground, nor a branch leans under a cardinal’s claw. Yet the barren scene is centered by the vivid heart of our school, Old Main. It is within those warm walls that we race with the music of conversation and laze in the relief of tender embrace. Despite its cool confines, the piece flirts with the lifeblood of MSA. Mandy only achieves this connection through her regard to the slightest detail, from the slender shape of a finial, to the pause of snow on each dormer. Those intricacies make the drawing real– like we’re up in Caton Hall, basking in the ardor of our home.

Mandy, a tenth-grader from Shanghai, China, seeks to chronicle life through her art. “I record the beauty in the ordinary things around me,” she said, “so, one day, when those things are gone, I still have their memory to hold on to.” In her hometown, she never saw the snow, so when the milky crystals began to fall that day, she remembered the brevity of her years at MSA. In an instant, she was gazing out of the photography studio windows, snapping what would soon become the reference photo of a project spanning all of spring semester. The scene was calm, save the teeming spirit of the building at center, with its serrated gables, vaulted windows, and brandishing wings. The intricate construction that met Mandy’s eyes would grow into her greatest artistic challenge to date, one she could not wait to conquer.

Every day that spring, Mandy would arrive at art class readied with her snowclad image, sketchbook, and a determined mind. Soon, sitting down to resume her work felt like greeting an old friend. “I had never drawn something that required so much precision,” she commented. “With such fine pencils, the hardest part was getting the bricks perfectly aligned and uniform.”

Some days, Mandy would walk up to the walls of the soaring building and place her hand on the cool, rough surface. She would get in touch with Old Main, feeling how each brick has its place in the structure’s society. This tactile response helped her replicate the architecture’s body and personality on the page. Former art teacher Mrs. Barrett remarked, “Mandy's focus and patience with this piece was unsurpassed.” These abilities allowed her to see her greatest challenge through, embracing her mistakes and seeing the light in her progress.

In the beginning, the Miller Manual Labor School provided a community and education for young boys. Since then, that establishment has become a place where anyone can find a family. We do not come from the same places, and we do not depart upon the same paths. But like the bricks of Old Main, we are making something here that is greater than ourselves. So that when you’re looking out to the white and barren land, with a looming, brick building at center, you see the life that is waiting behind the walls.