Airdrie high school students showed off their talent and creativity by displaying their art work in the first live gala at the Airdrie Public Library (APL) since the pandemic began in 2020.
Student artwork from George McDougall, St. Martin de Porres, and Bert Church high schools have been covering the library’s walls since the start of May, and the exhibit closed out with a gala event on June 11.
According to library staff, the Saturday night gala provided an opportunity for the public to meet the local artists and teachers.
“We really like to be able to show the talent in the community and we like to think of ourselves as a central hub here for the City of Airdrie and surrounding communities,” said Eric Pottie, APL’s programming and customer engagement manager.
Pottie added that people often think of the library as a place for literacy and exploring the written word, but APL hopes to highlight other avenues such as art and make people think.
“It's always great for us to be able to highlight art in general. but we really love being able to highlight high-school and youth artists and show just how talented the young people in Airdrie are as well as some of the older people,” Pottie said, adding APL regularly displays local and Albertan artists in their building, and has always had a rotating spot for high-school students.
“[We want to] kind of give the high-school students a bit of an art opening – to get that experience,” Pottie said.
Teachers from each school retrieved the art pieces after the gala was over in order for students to take their work home before the end of the school year.
One Grade 12 student from George McDougall High School, Emma McKee, was excited to discuss her teddy bear painting with the public.
“I try to make people think and I wouldn't mind if people argue over what I do. I like to make it weird,” McKee said before the show. “One of my other pieces was a surrealist drawing of a man holding a baby but their faces were swapped. So I like to see how other people interpret it and people always come up with different ideas and try to convince each other which one is right.”
Her teddy bear painting was created with the theme “crushed, vintage, and destroyed” in mind.
For her gala art project, McKee said instead of painting a physically crushed object, she decided to paint a bear that was destroyed and opened up, including cotton balls and thread as the bear's insides.
“I made the canvas a year ago because the canvas is 3D in itself, I didn't have an idea at the time and I still didn't have an idea this year, but then it just came to me,” McKee said.
The Grade 12 student has taken art classes for several years, but Saturday’s art gala was her first live show.
“It's a little morbid and kind of controversial I guess,” she said, when asked what the public could expect when viewing her artwork this past weekend.
McKee said she was excited to take part in the gala, as art is something she is extremely passionate about. After high school she plans to attend post-secondary and pursue an education degree to become an art teacher with her sights set on the Alberta University of the Arts (AUR) for the art portion and the University of Lethbridge for the education portion.
Keanna Lougheed-Heirsch, a Grade 10 student at Bert Church High School, shared that she created an arctic-themed pop-up project using markers to colour it, including ice-bergs and the Northern Lights.
"I did art over quarantine and got into it over that time period and then I decided to take art [in school] because it was an opportunity to learn new things, not just paintings,” Lougheed-Heirsch said. “I wanted to learn new techniques and it was a great experience for me to learn new mediums and techniques. Not just sticking to the same paintings I was doing and to get out of my comfort zone.”
Natalie Matwe, also a Grade 10 student at Bert Church High School, created a dream painting project that incorporated fantasy elements including portals of all her dreams. She shared that she learned the different techniques of art this past semester.
"I've learned that art isn't really just one style – there's a bunch of different styles we've covered throughout the semester and it's really interesting to figure out those different ways to do art,” she said.
