Liberty High School’s art program competed in a nationwide competition this past week. Crosely, a well known radio company, has put on this competition for art departments across the nation. This competition is called The Crosley Custom Cruiser Contest. Each art department that was participating in the contest was sent their very own Crosley Cruiser record player and vinyls to go with it. Art programs had to come up with a design that fit this year’s theme, “Band Together.” Each program’s design had to show creativity, craftsmanship, and thematic storytelling.
Liberty’s participants were Eleana Fernandes, Cian Carroll, Alison Dean, Charles Miller, Danielle Sutton, Hannah Jermacans, Kaylynn Burrel, Elizabeth Decaul, Sadie Springhettie, Ashley WIllingham, Naiomi White, Allie Farnsworth, Briyiths Portillo-Pineda, Kylie Fazenbaker, Brooke Hyde, and Hayden Bacon. Each student carefully contributed to the design process and execution. Throughout the competition, these specific students displayed high amounts of Leadership, High expectations, and Service—positively representing LHS along the way.
For Liberty’s design, each student put in large amounts of work to not only create and execute a winning
design, but they also had to come up with a design statement as well: “On our Cruiser, we sought to blend the concept of a global music culture as a shared experience. On top of our
Cruiser, we included people of many different ethnicities and abilities attending a concert together. This is further emphasized by our choice to include the world above our concertgoers, showing how music connects us on a global level. We included postage stamps from around the world, showing once again how music is transnational and shared by many. Film strips around the edges of the Cruiser highlight different genres of music as well as photos of Liberty High School musicians. The photos exhibit our collaboration between the visual arts and music departments within our school. The different genres of music show the variety of our students’
musical preferences. On the inside of our Cruiser, we included instruments from different cultures as well as music staves to affirm how music is universal. The handle displays the theme “Band Together,” written in Braille for the inclusion of people with disabilities in our world. At Liberty High School, we have an inclusive environment that values cultures and beliefs from around the world. Through music, we can find happiness together.”
This attention to detail in Liberty’s Cruiser is remarkable. Each small piece comes together to create a story about how music brings people together all over the world. No matter where you’re from, music can connect you. No matter what you look like, music can connect you. Music is something that can help people heal through hard times, help you relax, and bring up your mood. Liberty’s art students captured this perfectly while also portraying the specific features of Liberty’s music department at the same time.
The regional winners were determined by public vote and would then go on to the national judging
round. In that round, Crosley panel judges will evaluate the finalist’s cruiser and select a grand prize winner. The grand prize winner wins $2,500 or the school’s art program as well as around 25 cruisers for the high school participants. If you get 2-5th place, your school art program will get $500. Another prize winner is for the best social media video. If you win this category you also get $500 dollars for your art program as well as cruisers for the participants. Sadly, Liberty did not place; however, that doesn’t take away from the amazing work of art that our students put together.
Liberty’s art program creates amazing art pieces regularly. If you are interested in seeing what Liberty’s art program is up to and what pieces they’ve been creating, you can follow @liberty.nahs on instagram. Liberty can’t be more proud of these students and can’t wait to see what more they have to show in the future.
