Step on it! Gregori High shoe artists need online votes

Modesto’s Gregori High is in the running for a $50,000 contribution to its arts programs through a sneaker art competition.

Four student artists rendered the joint submission to Vans Custom Culture competition, one of 50 picked out of 3,000 entries nationwide. Online voting will pick the final five. The vote counters started running Tuesday, with daily revoting allowed, through May 11.

The teens transformed four plain pairs of sneakers to represent Vans’ contest themes. Sitting in the room of art teacher John Biven on Wednesday, they talked about doing art for the fun of it.

“My theme was art, which gave me a lot of free rein to do whatever I wanted,” said sophomore Joy Swanberg. She took a pen and ink geometric doodle in her sketchpad and spent two days and nights filling every inch of the curvy canvas.

Starting with tiny central circles, she built out a stylized flower on the vamp, covering the sides and backs of the loafers. She drew the ruler-straight lines freehand across the bendable surface.

“I like really precise art,” said Swanberg, pulling out her size 01 and 03 nib pens. She picked the fine points so the ink would not bleed on the canvas. The drawing took two days and much of the nights, said the self-admitted procrastinator.

“I finished about 4 a.m. My hands were shaking,” she said.

Senior Yuehesi Castaneda chose to illustrate the music theme using Day of the Dead skeletons holding guitars. The bright colors and crisp lines were all done by brush with acrylic paints.

“I really like Day of the Dead things,” Castaneda said with a laugh. Illustrating their musical side seemed an easy fit.

Her shoes are the only ones with a dark background. Their bright white rims reveal a black tongue unencumbered by laces.

“I really liked how the tongue separated the pictures,” she said. After considering different colors for the laces, she settled on the untethered version.

The Golden Gate Bridge inspired senior Rosheil Dahuya for her theme of local. “I considered going with a farm, but I wanted something more colorful,” she said.

She used high-tops to best advantage, having the gently sloping reddish rails lead up the side to towers soaring over the ankles. A sky of graduated blue deepens as it rounds the heel. In front, a white toe-piece is dotted with filmy pink almond blossoms, bringing in a taste of the Central Valley for this California entry.

Freshman Korryn Lemos was given the theme of sports, and decided to go with surfing for the gentle curves and sunny colors.

“I did a gradient sunset sky,” Lemos said, adding the toughest part was figuring the perspective of rolling sea and sky as it swam around the sneaker.

The teens can watch their totals to see if they will be traveling to Los Angeles on May 12 to be one of the final five, all of whom will win some level of prize for their school.

In the meantime, there’s a skateboard design contest for the semifinal 50. The Truth Skateboard Deck Challenge judges entries on their anti-smoking message. It is one of four separate contests aligned with the Vans competition.

Winning in the five-region Vans competition boils down to getting the most votes out of 10 California competitors, one of which is a high school in San Jose. The other eight are Southern California schools.

“I think we’re a winner already, just to be in the top 50,” Biven said. This is his fifth year in the contest but his first time with a team making it to the semifinals. The other shoe entries line up in a vertical closet of sorts, traipsing across the back wall of his classroom.

“We’re sure proud of these kids,” said Principal Brad Goudeau.

If they win, Swanberg requested a portion go to new paint brushes for the class. For themselves, the teens want to win so they can buy the shoes. The winning design may be produced and sold in Vans retail stores and online.

For the seniors, this is all happening as they wave goodbye to high school and plan for college. Castaneda will be studying biology at California State University, Sacramento. Dahuya will be pursuing a nursing degree at CSU Stanislaus in Turlock.

None of the four said they plan on majoring in art, though Castaneda said she might add it as a minor. Though she has not picked a direction yet, freshman Lemos said she does not want to make her painting into her work.

“I don’t want to have art as my main thing. It would take all the fun out of it,” she said.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 6:53 PM with the headline "Step on it! Gregori High shoe artists need online votes."