Art students make over shoes
ADAMS TWP — A group of Mars High School art students hopes a panel of judges get a kick out of Pittsburgh.
A dozen students in art teacher Erin Sloane’s classes decorated four pairs of white Vans shoes for the 2015 Vans Custom Culture Contest.
According to the contest website, the competition was created to inspire high school students to embrace their creativity and to bring attention to diminishing art education budgets in schools.
Sloane said each school that chooses to compete is given four pairs of white Vans in various styles, and must customize them using the themes of art, music, action sports and a local feature.
Channeling the unique and often-mocked Western Pennsylvania accent, the Mars students chose Pittsburgh Pierogies N’at for their art design, Music N’at for their music design, Skate N’at for action sports, and Dah Tahn N’at for local flavor.
The Pittsburgh Pierogies N’at shoes feature pierogies painted in the artistic style of native son Andy Warhol, with a pattern of knives and forks lining the interior of each shoe.
Music N’at includes the marble floor and serpentine columns of the Carnegie Music Hall, plus elements of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” which was filmed in Pittsburgh.
Skate N’at features Pittsburgh graffiti with the exterior design of a BMX bicycle and skateboard wheels, plus a bicycle chain pattern on the shoes’ interior.
And Dahn Tahn N’at shows the historic steel town developing into the current skyline.
A video on the design process is available on youtube.com
Sloane said senior Nick Deleone brought the idea to her, and a group of art students expressed their interest in the project.
Deleone said he saw the contest on Twitter, and thought a team of Mars students would have a fair shot at success.
“(With) the caliber of student artists that we have here, I thought we really could pull something together,” he said.
Deleone said he liked the themes developed and the concept of designing shoes.
“It was a really good experience for all of us to get into an area we might not traditionally work in,” he said. “It’s a nice, refreshing white, open canvas.”
Sloane said a panel of Vans personnel will judge the regional contest and select the top 10 entries. If Mars makes the cut, the public can vote on their shoes online from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 24.
All regional winners will advance to the final round in June. Up to 5,000 entries will vie for the grand prize of $50,000 for the winning school’s art program.
