EPB has selected five winners from Hamilton County Schools for their second annual “ArtSpark Goes to School” challenge. Five students from Hamilton County Schools were honored by EPB recently at the UTC Challenger Center when EPB announced the selection of their artwork. The winners were Kim Delgadillo and Lily Michel from Chattanooga High Center for Creative Arts, Yisel Garcia and Addison Hamilton from Hixson High and Amilcar Vargas Lucas from The Howard School. The winning artwork will be showcased on EPB utility boxes this spring in Downtown Chattanooga and on the North Shore.
Hamilton County Schools participates in the ArtSpark program that engages high school students through STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) education where students learn about electricity while creating artwork for public spaces. The students used digital cameras, professional graphic design and photography software to design their artwork with the help of their teachers and design experts.
“ArtSpark Goes to School is such an impactful way to feature the talent of our student artists as well as their skill in design,” said Claire Stockman, content lead for the arts. “We are proud of our students and art teachers, and I look forward to seeing their work in locations around Chattanooga.”
The students created artwork based on EPB’s theme for the year, "Anything is Possible - What can you achieve with technology designed to help you succeed?” With the theme in mind, students designed artwork to fit EPB utility boxes in the community.
Chattanooga’s designation as Gig City inspired Hixson High student Addison Hamilton’s artwork. Around the center of Addison’s art piece, there is a hand holding a phone. Messages are flying out and around the hand and phone, representing how technology today is bringing us closer together by being able to talk and text.
“I tried my hardest to illustrate what that could look like.,” said Addison Hamilton. “The flow of the colors coming from the city represents EPB giving us the power to communicate and find communities online. It is really helpful that we have the technology that we do so that we can find other people like us.”
Three Hamilton County Schools participated in the contest this year with the guidance of the schools’ art teachers: Chattanooga High School Center for the Creative Arts’ Justin Black and Chad Burnette; Hixson High’s Lacy Jones and Katie Claiborne, and The Howard School’s Sheri Heinz.
“ArtSpark Goes to School encourages students to learn about how being an artist can extend beyond an individual’s artistic vision by working with your community,” said Dr. Joel Baxley, director of Visual Art Education at UTC’s Southeast Center for Education in the Arts. “It has been really exciting for me to see the final products from the hard work and creativity of the teachers and students at each school.”
EPB will create vinyl wraps from the winning student designs that will cover utility boxes for at least a year. The locations this year will be in the City Center, Coolidge Park, and on the Southside.
Photos: (Top left) Addison Hamilton, (Top Right) Kim Delgadillo, (Second row left) Lily Michel, (Second row right) Amilcar Vargas Lucas (Bottom) The artwork of Yisel Garcia