Every Year the Charbeneau community holds the Charbeneau Art Festival, which features art not only from the professional artists of Wilsonville but from the students of  Wilsonville High School’s visual and Graphic arts departments. Art teacher Mr. Shotola-Hardt discussed the opportunities that the festival provides budding art students with.

“We will represent students from the various classes that each of the four visual arts faculty teach.  That’s Escobar, Hyman, Jensen, and Shotola-Hardt. I, for example, will have examples of work from Art I, Art II, Art III, Art IV, and AP.  I think my colleagues each have a similar game plan. We want to show the breadth and scope of our department. Public arts festivals are a great vehicle for art education advocacy since so many of the festival visitors have no connection to anyone in public schools.  We want them to see excellent work so they walk away impressed and they understand how vital and important art education is, says Shotola-Hardt.”

Students from graphic arts and as visual art classes will work on their various projects in front of festival goers a demonstration of their art skills. Shotola says “we’re handpicking a wide range of styles, subject matter, and materials used so that the general public gets an overview of all the offerings of our school.”

“Student demos are both Saturday & Sunday, 10 to 4.  We broke up each day into two-hour shifts. Certain AP artists, like Eleanor Karrick, have signed up to do multiple demo shifts — I think Eleanor is planning on living at the Charbonneau Country Club that first weekend of November!” exclaims Shotola. “Eleanor has so many conceptual layers to her work that I think people will leave the event saying, “my brain hurts.”

Students in Shotola and Ms. Escobar’s Classes will be offered extra credit if they go to the gallery. In Shotola’s advanced and AP art classes if they go they can have time taken off of their make up studio hours for classes they miss. “ Typically we put red arrows pointing to a single piece in the exhibit that the student visitor shoots a selfie with — when he or she shows us the selfie with the chosen work, extra credit is awarded.  We want to build a culture of going to art shows to support fellow artists. Art shows are cool, and seeing works in person kicks behooney over seeing only a digital image of it on a screen!” explains Shotola.

If students want to rack up volunteer hours or just help out they can visit Ms. Escobar’s room “The festival organizers gave us a list of job and time slots and Ms. Escobar has the sign-up chart in the 3D Studio, Room.82.  Go see her and log yourself some volunteer hours!”

The arts festival is at the Charbonneau Country Club and lasts from November 2nd through November 4th. All days have food and drinks available and entrance is free for students.