Lee Bonevich is a newcomer to Community High School, having just started his freshman year this September. Bonevich is also a rampant artist, with pencils and watercolors as his preferred mediums.

Since middle school, Bonevich has been using art as an escape from the stresses of school, and from his own personal issues.

“It’s fun… It’s a good release for pent-up emotions without having to talk,” Bonevich said. He tends to draw when he’s stressed or upset and says that he feels that it’s better than having to write down what he’s feeling. To Bonevich, art is how he gets away from the anxiety around him.

Since coming out as transgender in 2017, Bonevich says that his art has helped him channel the stress that has come with that. Even before Bonevich came out, art was the way he dealt with his confusion about his identity, and the depression that came with it.

“I hate school,” Bonevich said, “Art is how I take my mind off of it.”

Unfortunately, though art has helped him take his mind off of it, it hasn’t helped him succeed in it. If anything, those close to Bonevich says, his art is a way he distracts himself during class. Though it helps him deal with the stress of it, that stress always comes back later when he realizes that he has to do it. Part of that hatred of school is connected to his confusion about his future.

Bonevich, like most high schoolers, has almost no idea what he wants to do once graduation comes and goes. One thing he is sure of, his art will be a part of it.