CHICOPEE – Chicopee Comprehensive High School’s art department may win $75,000 just for showing their “custom culture.” That is the grand prize in the 2019 Vans Custom Culture high school shoe customization contest.

The five top designs will be selected during the second week of May and the grand prize winner will be announced by May 17. In addition to the grand prize money, Vans will throw the school a barbeque with a musical performance by a surprise artist. The four runners-up receive $10,000 for their art departments and a gift from the shoe company.

The school registered in January and was one of the 500 selected to participate. Chicopee’s designs are in the top 50 and are currently being voted on at the company’s website.

Senior Justin Dunn and sophomores Kaylee Leahy, Elisa Albelo, and Morgan Willis worked on the project. Art teachers Trish Kemp, Scott Brubach, and Robert Meulemans oversaw the students’ work on the project. The students receive class credit for the work they did.

“We worked on it all class long,” Willis said.

Each school was shipped two pairs of shoes to design around a theme. One pair was themed “Local Flavor” and the other pair was themed “Off the Wall,” reflecting the shoe company’s slogan.

The “Off the Wall” pair was inspired by what Brubach described as “urban art.” The upper portion of the pair was painted bright mint green with the laces dyed to match and the piping on the trim was left crisp white. The toe section is understated, yet intricate. Dunn said the overlapping geometric scales were all hand drawn.

“I thought that design would look really cool,” said Dunn. The students said it was reminiscent of “graffiti” or a “doodle.” It took two weeks to design and paint the “Off the Wall” pair. The “Local Flavor” pair took a bit longer.

The students took the prompt of “local flavor” and designed the right shoe to represent Chicopee and the left shoe to represent Massachusetts. They used wire to build a three-dimensional form and paper-clay to sculpt around it to create a form of art known as an armature.

On the Massachusetts shoe, the students sculpted a cone to sit in the opening of the left shoe, sanding and painting it to look like a lighthouse, complete with a wire parapet. The front of the shoe was sculpted into crashing waves, while small rocks were glued around the back and toe, creating a shoreline.

The right shoe, devoted to Chicopee, was painted asphalt gray with green on either side. Faux trees were added to the green and on the gray “tarmac” sat a sculpted military plane to represent Westover Air Force Base. The students added a small clay depiction of their school to the tip of the toe. Sitting above it all is a towering, brown, Mount Tom.

“It was definitely different,” Albelo said, from any of the other class work they’ve done.

“Vans believes everyone should be empowered to express themselves creatively and should be given the tools to do so,” the company’s website states.

Vans partnered with Yoobi as their exclusive art supplier. Yoobi, which donates an item to schools for each item it sells, provided art supplies to all confirmed registrants. The grand prize event will be sponsored by Journeys, which will also be giving the Top 5 schools gift cards. Americans for the Arts is the official national charity partner for the Vans’ Custom Culture contest.

Chicopee Comp has participated in the contest for a couple of years, Brubach said. It was a late teacher, John Archambault, who had the idea for the school to take part in the contest. He passed away last year. Teacher Robert Meulemans said Vans were very much Archambault’s style.

“We loved him so much we wanted to continue it,” Brubach said.

The designs are available to view and vote for at www.customculture.vans.com. Voting closes May 3 and people can vote once per day.