Two area schools are finalists in a national contest and if they win the whole thing, they could win more than fifty thousand dollars for their school's art program.
2016 is the 50th anniversary for an iconic sneaker popular with skate boarders, surfers, and teens; Vans shoes.
Vans is holding a national contest called Custom Culture, involving the shoes and art work. Skutt Catholic and Forth Calhoun high school are among the finalists.
Inside the art classroom at Skutt Catholic, students are hard at work tackling a variety of passion projects.
"It gives you a chance to have a break in your day and be creative, and it works a different side of your mind than math and science, or sports or something like that," junior Jane Mattern said.
So when students like senior Jennifer Hoody had the chance to participate in the custom culture contest, there was no question.
"I've loved art so much, and I think all kids deserve to have this experience. Fifty thousand dollars would be amazing," she said.
Even though many involved would graduate before the money would go to the school, that didn't stop them. For the contest, students had to design four pairs of blank canvas shoes. They were challenged to create designs that represent the four themes of the Vans "Off The Wall" lifestyle.
"Sports, arts, music, and then local culture. We kind of ended up taking inspiration from the local culture we decided to go with corn," senior Sara Zaleski said.
"Most of them, they just paint the shoes the plain shoes but we wanted to take our ideas to a different level," Mattern said.
Students got their wheels spinning, not only embracing the corn, but sculptural elements like a cornhusk into their creations. The ideas came after students sketched out suggestions, and then those ideas got combined.
Skutt is now one of fifty finalists battling for online votes. From there, the final five finalists will travel to Los Angeles. The top winner will received fifty thousand for their art program. Now, the students are working on a second challenge with Vans and Truth, where they have to create a skateboard deck to depict the dangers of teen smoking. Between both challenges, if they win, the students could win sixty thousand for their art program. It's something that even graduating seniors like Hoody say, is totally worth all the hard work.
"If we could just improve the equipment that we have for pottery, and regular then we also have digital imaging and theres just so many different programs that it could go towards," she said.
Voting goes until May 11 at Vans.com/CustomCulture.
