Lillian Hoffa was still a bit excited.<\/p>\n
Just the day before, the 18-year-old Twin Valley High School senior completed all the paperwork and requirements and was officially enrolled for the fall as a first-year student at the Art Institute of Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been my dream school for, like, ever,\u201d Hoffa, the Reading Eagle\u2019s Berks\u2019 Best 2026 winner in visual arts, said while seated in the pottery studio at the high school. \u201cI\u2019m so excited to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
But first, she has a goal to temper a few disappointments before setting out for the Midwest.<\/p>\n
First, the disappointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even get to take all the art classes here,\u201d she said. \u201cI wish I could take more of them, but I just don\u2019t have room in my schedule. There are so many and there\u2019s so much to learn here.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that won\u2019t stop her from her achieving one of her goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s one medium I haven\u2019t tried yet \u2014 glass,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hoffa will be taking a glass course this summer at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading.<\/p>\n
It is her breadth of mediums, she believes, that got her into the Art Institute.<\/p>\n
\u201cI work with a lot of different mediums, which I think is one of the key aspects of my artistic career,\u201d she said, \u201cand I also tend to work with whatever I\u2019m thinking of in my head, and my head is a crazy place.\u201d<\/p>\n
That helps her tap into a surrealist vibe, \u201ckind of weird, funky stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also likes working with wordplay and metaphors in her art.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did a project here that jumpstarted my love for word play,\u201d she said. \u201cWe did a \u201970s poster and you had to make the words the art, and I really liked how that came out because I can play a lot with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoffa hopes to pursue a career in art education, and her love of all genres of the art world will help prepare her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith art education, you have to be well-rounded like that,\u201d she said. \u201cI can do so much. I can teach at least the basics for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoffa is looking forward to being immersed among other artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m more influenced by the artists I work with,\u201d she said. \u201cI look around me and see other people who are better artists than I am and will take inspiration from them and try to do it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoffa is sure that art will always be a large part of her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I haven\u2019t really reached a peak yet when it comes to my art, and I don\u2019t ever want to,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to just keep improving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lillian Hoffa was still a bit excited. Just the day before, the 18-year-old Twin Valley High School senior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,85079,227,182,139,28,128,130,129,706,85085],"class_list":["post-193386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-berks-best-2026","tag-education","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg","tag-twin-valley-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}