Come out to support art in Ohio County Schools for Celebration of the Arts on March 21st from 4:30-6:30 in the ILC. It is clear that Celebration of the Arts is an incredible showcase that is loved and looked forward to every year by students and teachers alike. 

The highly anticipated Celebration of the Arts is going to be held on March 21st from 4:30-6:30 in Wheeling Park High School’s Innovative Learning Center.

“To me, it’s just an amazing opportunity for the kids to see what they’ve done and for their parents and communities to see what is happening up here because everybody hears about the sports and the championships but to truly see..what the art kids are doing,” said Mr. Shultz, art teacher at Wheeling Park High School. “It’s spectacular,”

“The Celebration of the Arts is so important to me because everybody from Ohio County Schools is being recognized, from elementary, middle, and high school, in the same place and time,” said Julie Walters, senior at Wheeling Park High School.

“My favorite part of The Celebration is seeing the kids smile and be proud of their accomplishments, and seeing the families happy about their student’s works,” said Mrs. Freeman, art teacher at Wheeling Park High School.

“I wish that people would see that creativity is the highest level of knowledge that students can attain,”said Freeman. “Art in the schools have invaluable goodness in that they encourage kids to come to school, they teach humanistic skills, and they emphasize creativity, which helps students in all other core classes. The Celebration of Arts celebrates the human part we all have, to some degree, to make things.” 

While Celebration of the Arts provides an incredible opportunity to display the work of the art department in particular, it is not the only department that participates. Previously, Park’s choir, band, strings, and theater departments have all performed at this event. 

“It’s everything that we do artistically in one night,” said Mr. Shultz. “It is the culmination of the best of the best.” 

The preparation for this event is immense for both the students and teachers and is a massive collaboration between the art departments of Ohio County Schools.

For students and teachers alike, the work begins at the start of the new school year in the Fall. 

Students begin working on new art pieces that can be chosen by their art teachers for display in the celebration. 

“It’s an all-year process when myself or other people have art that is being celebrated… it’s art that has been worked on from August until now, and it’s so cool to see everyone’s artwork and their progress along with it throughout the year,” said Julie Walters.

The work for students doesn’t just include creating these pieces. After making their pieces look more professional by framing and matting (the process of putting a flat piece of material to surround an artwork within the frame), they also help outside of class time.

“Our upper-level classes and volunteers stay after school to hang all the pieces and help the Middle School and Elementary teachers hang artwork”, Mrs. Freeman also explained. 

While the students focus on the creation of these incredible artworks, the teachers focus on the logistics of the event.

The teachers collaborate together by having meetings to organize how all the artwork will get to and from Park and to determine which groups will perform that night. 

Despite how time-consuming it is, all of the hard work from the teachers and students pays off every year when the night of Celebration of the Arts finally arrives.

“My favorite part is just seeing the eyes of both the students and community when they see how it looks when it’s up and running and just how great the quality that we produce here is,” said Mr. Shultz. “I just enjoy sitting back and seeing the reactions and every year I hear them say ‘Wow I had no idea that we had so much talent’ and each year it gets better and better and better. And the quality that these guys are producing gets better and better and better.” 

“I remember being in elementary and middle school and being part of it and just the memories and being recognized with everybody’s art is so cool,” Walters also said. 

Celebration of the Arts can be enjoyable for all members of the community, not only art students and those involved with the arts departments.

“I’ve always really enjoyed seeing what my friends and people I know from school can do,” said Rylin Russel, senior at Park. “Every year there are really beautiful works of art, and it’s really cool that I know the people behind them.”