WVHS artists carve out threepeat as Crystal Springs Jack-o-Lantern Walk champs
For a third straight year, Warwick Valley High School artists took First Place overall at the 7th Annual Jack-O-Lantern Walk at Crystal Springs Resort!
The team received a Grand Prize of $1,000, which is being added to the high school’s Art Scholarship Booster account by the PTA. The winning carvers and craftspeople came from Kristen Spano’s Portfolio & Art Careers class, her extracurricular Art Club, and from Rocco Manno’s Set Construction & Woodworking class.
See a gallery of the team’s progress and installation below this story!
The annual event invites high school art students to compete in conceptualizing, carving and installing unique pumpkin displays on the Crystal Springs grounds. Resort members, guests and community members are then welcome to stroll through each team’s pumpkin patch and cast their votes in various categories, including best team effort! Warwick Valley has competed the past three years and went into this year’s event as defending two-time champs, having won previously with displays based on the popular movies Coraline and Ghostbusters!
Their theme this year was Game of Thrones, and the team was determined to create something on an epic scale!
“We had a throne that guests could actually to sit on,” exclaimed Ms. Spano! “I couldn’t be more proud of my students and Mr. Manno’s set design class. They truly worked together as a team to create a display that was interactive and dynamic! Not to mention, we even had entertainment, a musical performance.”
See a gallery of the team’s progress and installation below this story!
Senior cellist Gianna Crescimanno added some multimedia flare to the installation, performing the Game of Thrones title song live throughout the evening. The Thrones-themed display was truly immersive, giving guests human scale props to interact with (can you say, “quality selfies”), including a life-size throne, Targaryen, Lannister and Stark house banners, a giant dragon — obviously — and an imposing and eerie Night King.
“Our students also won the Peoples Choice and Best Craftsmanship awards,” added Ms. Spano. “Congratulations, Sofia Ayupov for her Night King, and Sara Venter, for her Targaryen Banner with Dragon Crest!”
Both Sofia and Sara received a $100 VISA gift card for their contributions to the winning display.
The jack-o-lantern team is all about challenging itself year to year, so this year’s project had to include some new tricks. Besides upping the scale and the brining in more interactive elements, many of this year’s designs incorporated LED lights, which the students tested in the high school’s darkroom. They also used black light paint to create striking visual effects and layers of creepy depth. This was Sara’s second time participating in the contest. When we talked with her on competition-eve, the collaboration had been going on for at least three weeks.
“This is a great project and it’s really fun. We’ve been working on it for pretty much all of October,” she said, looking around at the final stages coming together. “Tomorrow, everyone will finally come out and vote for the best overall piece.”
Congratulations everyone, your creativity and hard work were evident in your amazing display!
Here’s a look…
