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It's good to take a break from museum shows and large-gallery openings to visit an exhibit of work by high school students. There's a rawness of technique and an honesty that disappears after years of art school critiques.

Six seniors will hang their work at the Depot Art Center on Tuesday. The show will be up for only one day. Among the pieces is a powerful, color-pencil portrait by Joel Graham. From across the room, the image looks like a photograph.

Jenny Lee, whom most people know as a competitive freestyle skier, submitted a black-and-white photograph of a skateboard on a wall. The perspective abstracts the composition.

Jason Powell created two sculptural puppets. They hang face to face and hold their own marionette strings in their hands. The piece is called "Freedom to Love."

Powell curated the show for his Steamboat Springs High School senior project. Powell will graduate mid-year and will go to art school at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He tried to choose artists whom people do not immediately associate with art.

Powell chose several of his pieces for the show to demonstrate the progression of his work since his first ceramics class during his sophomore year. That year, he made a New Year's resolution to draw every day.

"Since then, I've grown and grown, and this show represents the fruits of my labors," he said. "It's about how far I've come and how far I have to go."

After visiting San Francisco for a summer art workshop, Powell was exposed to people interested in AIDS activism. What he learned inspired him to earmark proceeds from sales at Tuesday's show to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

"There's still such a stigma about having AIDS," Powell said. "There have been more advancements in cosmetic surgery than in AIDS research. It's something that needs to be talked about."

Elton John music will play during the show.