Artists get public acclaim at Kent Student Art Walk

Kent-Meridian High School senior Emma Fitzpatrick stood proudly next to her drawing on one of the main display walls at the Centennial Center Gallery in downtown Kent next to City Hall.

“It’s awesome, I love it,” Fitzpatrick said as she looked at her art with her name below it. “I feel so accomplished all of a sudden.”

The creativity of nearly 445 children from 25 Kent School District schools is on display through March 18, as part of the 17th annual Kent Student Art Walk at the Centennial Center Gallery and 25 downtown businesses.

The opening reception for the Kent Student Art Walk goes from 5-7 p.m. March 11 at the city-owned gallery, 400 W. Gowe St. The self-guided art-walk segment through downtown actually started March 7.

For Kent’s student artists, the show is a way to celebrate their talents, acknowledging individual students to the community.

“For years I wanted to draw but it never turned out that good,” Fitzpatrick said of her work. “Now it’s clicked and I want to show it off.”

The Kent Arts Commission organizes the annual Student Art Walk in cooperation with the Kent School District’s teachers, students and parents, the Kent Downtown Partnership and Kent Station.

Fitzpatrick is one of 29 Kent-Meridian High School students in the International Baccalaureate arts class who submitted art for the show.

Her teacher, Karen Drumheller, noted the level of effort her students put into their work.

“It’s a college-level class and they get a college credit,” Drumheller said of the year-long class. “They can really find their passion.”

Drumheller, with help from others, spent about three hours last weekend spreading the art across the gallery floor and then hanging it.

“Every year it blows us away with the portfolio we have,” Drumheller said.

Fitzpatrick picked a piece done in pencil that features trees with eyes.

“I love nature and drawing it,” she said. “Trees vary in many ways. It’s nice to get a good effort on it.”

Alishia Willingham, another Kent-Meridian senior, eyed her comic art on display at the Centennial Center Gallery.

She started drawing as a young child but didn’t get serious about art until about five years ago when she discovered Internet digital art.

“I was drawing humans, then I found out I liked drawing animals better and then I went to comics,” Willingham said. “At first, it was like a Sunday newspaper comic. Now it’s more comic-book style.”

In fact, Willingham’s comic art has caught the attention of comic book publishers across the nation so she might even skip college and go right into a job drawing comics. She’s even working on her own comic book that is up to about 20 pages.

“I might go into comic books but I think I need more experience,” she said.

Willingham’s piece at the gallery includes characters from her comic book. They are chasing and catching butterflies.

“They put the butterflies in a jar and then they die because the jar has no holes,” Willingham said.

Others have seen Willingham’s art online, but now she has her work in a public gallery.

“It made me nervous at first,” she said of seeing her art in public. “But when I get positive feedback it’s nice. I like for people to see it and to give me feedback. Maybe someone will notice me. It’s nice to get art out there.”

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick plans to go to college to become possibly a math or art teacher or maybe an architect.

“I think it’d be fun to create on paper and then see it built in front of you,” she said.

But first Fitzpatrick will enjoy seeing her work on display at a public gallery.

“It’s like playing in a football game for a sports kid,” Fitzpatrick said.

For more information and a map of where to find the artwork, go to www.ci.kent.wa.us/arts and click on Kent Student Art Walk.

To see Willingham’s comic Web site, go to www.bluecracker.com.