Mission high school students have created artwork for this year’s Heritage Week based on the theme heritage of communications.
It’s the first time all three are participating, said Ann Mohs, Heritage Week planning committee co-chair.
This is the third year Heritage Park secondary is doing work for the historical society, said art teacher Kathy Baker.
Students found ideas from photos at the archives and the Internet to create masterpieces with intense and simple colour schemes.
There are 25 pieces being submitted, from dial phones to Deroche’s first post office, students used their imaginations and enjoyed creating the art, said Baker.
It took Clara Banken, a Grade 11 exchange student from Germany almost three weeks to paint an old car in front of a building.
“I’ve never done such a big piece before,” she said.
Jaimi Wainwright took a different approach and created her large piece with ink and crayon.
There will be nine students’ work on display from Mission secondary students.
They worked on the project for two weeks and had fun reviewing old photographs, researching topics on the Internet and comparing old telephones to the sleek modern one, said teacher Marsha Lemon.
The series of drawings are done in a variety of mediums from pencil and pencil crayons to conte and charcoal.
“My favourite pieces show not only the communication device … but it also includes a person using the device,” said Lemon. “This helps date the piece through the hairstyles and clothing.”
Grade 11 and 12 art students were also busy at Hatzic secondary producing posters. The Grade 11 and 12 students used digital images and computer technology for the project.
“Each student was asked to include the word ‘communicate’ somewhere in their poster,” said HSS teacher Wendy Lewington.
“The students have been working on the project for … three weeks,” she added. “They were eager to begin the project because it involved photo editing programs such as Photoshop, and most students are very interested in learning about how to use these types of programs.”
HSS will be contributing between 15 and 20 posters for the display. One of the unique pieces was created by Johannes Kahloefer, an international student visiting from Germany.
Kahloefer’s poster is a collage of images featuring modern technology juxtaposed with historical images that have been scanned from a collection at the Mission Community Archives.
These images are edited so that they are multi-coloured and multi-layered.
“The combination of images and the technology used to create the poster speaks to the enormous and rapid changes that have taken place in the field of communication and the implications this has for our community and for society at large,” noted Lewington.
• Works from all three high schools will be on display during Heritage Week (Feb. 20 – Feb. 27) in downtown businesses.
