Fifty-four students from Nicholas Pabst’s Spanish classes at Camp Verde High School took part in the recently-formed Verde Valley Cultural Collective’s Dia de Los Muertos art contest.
Their artwork, along with pieces created by students from Camp Verde Elementary, Beaver Creek School and Desert Star Community School, was showcased at the Camp Verde Community Library from Thursday, Oct. 24, to Wednesday, Nov. 6.
“The Verde Valley Cultural Collective is a group of artists that are involved in supporting venues for art in Camp Verde and the Verde Valley,” VVCC co-founder Barry Brennan said. “We have the students from the Camp Verde schools … submitting art that follows the theme of the Dia de Los Muertos because it has been Hispanic Heritage Month and the Day of the Dead is coming up, Nov. 1.”
The library held a reception on Tuesday, Oct. 29, during which the collective’s members announced the winners of the high school art contest.
Amber Benally took first place, Lucia Bautista second and DeAnna Bradley third. Ellie Andre earned an honorable mention for her poem “Ledijo la Oruga,” or, ”The Caterpillar Told Him.”
Students in lower grades submitted coloring pages depicting different elements of Día de Muertos, including marigolds, remembrance altars, La Catrina — a female skeleton figure associated with the holiday — and alebrijes, fantastical chimaeras that are popular in Mexican folk art.
The Camp Verde Community Library donated the paper for the students, most of whom created their Day of the Dead-themed works in watercolor, crayon and pencil, although a few incorporated crepe paper or colorful pipe cleaners to give their works more dimension.
“We really love connecting with the schools, because Dia de Los Muertos is a very important holiday, and the students are learning that it’s not Halloween, that it is a holiday of remembrance of your loved one who has passed,” CVCL Spanish Outreach and Children’s Library Specialist Leticia Ancira said. Ancira also discussed how the holiday emerged from snycretism between Mexican religious traditions and Spanish Catholicism.
Benally, a Camp Verde High School freshman, said that she included religious themes that she learned about in her church in her artwork, as well as cultural elements such as calaveras, commonly known as sugar skulls, that she learned about in her Spanish class.
“The amount of work and her talent is obvious, beautiful and she did a bit of geometrics, too. There’s some cubism involved,” Brennan said of her work.
Benally said that the main figure of her piece was her favorite component because she was able to make it the most detailed.
“It’s about having a person who is [there] to help you through struggles,” Bautista said. “Then when they’re gone they are still there within you, and they’re still pushing you. But now just the memory and the spirit of them.”
Bautista said that her great grandfather, who died last year during Thanksgiving, is her own example of that philosophy. “I love Edgar Allan Poe, he’s one of my favorite poets,” Benally said.
“I started reading him in eighth grade … I love writing. I write music, essays, poems all the time, even without having school be the incentive for me to do it. I do it on my own, no matter what. And it’s just kind of a passion.”
“I learned from children that art is so important to them,” Ancira said. “We all, we should all be doing some art. It really brings a lot of healing, calmness, tranquility.”
