Several Woodbridge High School art students competed in the annual Vans Custom Culture Contest. This is the third year that the Barrons have competed in the competition, which began at the end of February.

The Vans Custom Culture Contest is an opportunity for students all over America to be creative, work in groups, and compete for various prizes. Each school is sent two pairs of white Vans shoes in which they are to decorate based off of given themes. This year’s themes were “Local Flavor” and “Off the Wall”. Only 500 schools were selected to participate and show why they deserve to win the $75,000 first place prize towards their school’s art department.

Both Ms. Zadigian and Mr. Angatia’s students worked on the Vans, which created a group of ____ students. They used several different resources to create their finishing product, including clay, markers, acrylic paint, and photocopy to accentuate their ideas.

“This [project] took organization, patience, and lots of problem-solving on their part,” said Ms. Zadigan. Despite being in different classes, the students had to work together to choose a topic and design for their shoes. The students chose Atlantic City as inspiration for their “Local Flavor” pair of shoes which they decorated with poker cards, laffy taffy, and other notable symbols of the boardwalk. For their second pair of shoes they warped the designs and tried to push them further off of the surface of the fabric to make it seem as the shoes were really “Off the Wall.”

While the Barrons didn’t make top 50 this time, they hope to place next year. In addition to competing in the Vans Contest, they are looking for more competitions to enter to display their talent and skill. “Having watched how hard our participating students worked, while also completing their regular class assignments, I feel proud of their accomplishments,” said Ms. Zadigan.