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The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Artists create kicks, Vans sneakers transform into art

This spring, art students are competing in the Vans Custom Culture contest.

According to Vans.com, the top five winners of the Vans Custom Culture contest will be flown to New York City for an exclusive final event where the winner will be selected.

“The grand prize winning school will receive a $50,000 prize for their art program and the chance for their shoes to be produced and sold in Vans’ retail stores. The four runner up schools will also receive money for their art programs,” said the Vans website.

Art teacher Gillian Bailey said that the students entering the contest are working on it in class after having extra time when they finished their assignments.

“There are some individuals and some groups working on it,” said Bailey. “Some art three students are working on it as their project of choice.”

Sophomores Julliette Lucas and Dominic Frost, Juniors Maya Brodrick and Leslie Zhang, and senior Kai Ra Essig are all entering in different categories.  For each category there are four different styles of shoes.  The categories include; X games board sports, art, local flavor and music.

Frost is entering in the X games board sports category.

“Ms. Bailey asked me to do one and she said I could work with my friends, but that didn’t end up happening,” Frost said.  “She gave me the board sports category which was very fitting”

Zhang is entering in the art category.  Brodick and Essig are working together to enter in the local flavor category. Lucas is entering in the music category.

Frost said his design is based off art work by Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai is famously known for his woodblock print called The Great Wave off Kanagawa, and was inspired from details of the piece.

“I used the same kind of influence as Hokusai piece and made the waves and the sun the same way,” Frost said.

“They’re pretty amazing,” said Bailey. “They are all very very different.”

 

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