An Airdrie student's painting of a frog will grace the walls of the Calgary Catholic School District’s (CCSD) head office for the next year, after her piece was among the works selected for the district’s annual Art Walk.
Every spring, CCSD hosts an Art Walk ceremony featuring art created by the district's students. Staff from each of the 117 schools in the district select a student’s two-dimensional art piece, which is then framed and displayed on one of the walls at CCSD’s head office in Calgary.
“It’s a celebration of children’s art, and I like to refer to it as the largest children’s art gallery in the west,” said Holly Schile, CCSD’s arts and culture liaison.
“It’s the only one that changes out the art every single year, so we have approximately 117 pieces that are changed out on a yearly basis. We get to enjoy them at central office, and it reminds us who we work for.”
According to Schile, the CCSD Art Walk has gone on for 26 years. In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, she said the district would hold an annual in-person ceremony every April to honour the students whose art was chosen for the display. The ceremony would include speeches, a gallery-style walking tour, and a compilation video.
“Now, with the pandemic and not being able to gather, we do it virtually,” Schile said, adding this April's ceremony will also be held online.
“We really hope next year we can be together again and celebrate in person. It was kind of sad in a way because our 25-year celebration [last year] had to be virtual, but it turned out so great.”
Airdrie has four CCSD schools – St. Martin de Porres High School, St. Veronica School, Our Lady Queen of Peace School, and Good Shepherd School. That means every year, four Airdrie students' art works are selected for the annual Art Walk.
Among those this year is St. Martin de Porres student Michelle Ortiz, whose painting of a tree frog hanging from an upside-down flower was selected by the school's staff as their Art Walk submission for 2022.
The Grade 12 student said her painting combines a black acrylic border with a water colour frog as the centrepiece.
“It was originally just going to be water colour, but water colour isn’t my favourite medium and I like acrylic, because I can add onto it,” she said.
According to Ortiz, the painting was for an art class project called ‘Beyond the borders,’ which tasked students with creating a contrasting piece. Enjoying how the piece turned out, her art teacher Sara Neumiller encouraged her to submit it for the Art Walk.
“I was just really excited overall to see that a piece I did on a frog was the one they chose,” the 17-year-old artist said, adding the piece took her about 20 hours to commplete.
This wasn’t the first time the frog – which Ortiz calls Todd – has been the subject of her paintings. She said she invented the amphibian character when doodling during one of her high school French lessons last year. Since then, she said she has incorporated Todd into multiple art pieces.
“I just really like drawing [frogs],” she said. “I’d never really drawn a realistic frog before – I’m not one for realism – but thought it’d be fun to do a realistic tree frog, and I think it worked out.”
Ortiz said she has been drawing and painting for many years, adding she grew up in Peru, and would practise drawing alongside her grandfather.
“I definitely got my artistic skills from him, and I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember,” she said.
Now in her final term of Grade 12, Ortiz said her goal after graduating this spring is to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Calgary, with the ultimate goal of becoming an art teacher.
