Olympics of Visual Arts Students Prepare for Competition

Fashion during the Gilded Age was extravagant and formal with women wearing elaborate floor-length dresses featuring textiles like satin, lace, velvet and fringe. That’s why it was an inspired fashion challenge for students participating in the Olympics of Visual Arts.

The opportunity to participate in the competition, which takes place in April in Saratoga Springs, was offered to both fifth and eighth graders. Fifth graders may do so through a before-school club, while eighth graders had the chance to enroll in a new class. 

One recent morning, students from both sections worked together in the C.V. Starr art room, parading around in fancy dresses, hats and tuxedos. One of the dresses contained a Gilded Age ballroom scene inside the folds of fabric complete with actual spinning dancers. 

“We studied the era and used Alice Vanderbilt as a model,” said Delilah Bekker. “We even added sculpted trains on top of the dress because railroads created a lot of wealth for families like the Vanderbilts.”

In addition to the fashion challenge there are challenges in painting, drawing, illustration, and sculpture.

Dylan Daidone and Amelia Logue move around a hydra, or many-headed creature, with a hot glue gun, attaching soda can tabs onto tentacles and layering paper Mache waves around the monster.

“We have to create an original sculpture that incorporates found objects–soda can tabs–and reflects a creation myth of our choice,” said Dylan. “We thought the Hydra story was cool and  would look really great as a sculpture.”

On a nearby table, students in the drawing challenge, which has to feature movement, are painting dragons for a carousel that will  move. Images will also be used in a zoetrope, a device that creates the illusion of motion by rapidly displaying a sequence of still images when a cylinder is spun. 

The largest art piece in the room is a painted cabinet with two doors that open.

“It’s a diptych (a painting on two hinged panels) cabinet and the challenge is to really use color, so we decided to paint the right door in bold bright colors and playful images to represent the young creative mind, but as you grow older oftentimes people lose their creativity so we painted the left door in darker colors and more realistic images,” said Elena Negro.

Luca Borneman who came up with the cabinet idea said “Inside the cabinet is a rainbow waterfall pooling colors spilling off the edge of the cabinet floor that represents the potential for creativity in all of us.”

OVA students are certainly channeling their creativity with these inspired creations.