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NCCC students unveil First Night banners

SARANAC LAKE – Five banners will hang at the Harrietstown Town Hall at First Night 2016; two of those were made by North Country Community College students, who invited members of the public to an “unveiling” of their creations at NCCC Wednesday.

Each year, artists and organizations create banners for the New Year’s Eve celebration. This year, students in NCCC Art Department Chair Carol Vossler’s “2D Design” class collaborated on the design and execution of two of the banners.

“They incorporated the semester’s lessons of designing, elements of design and principles of composition,” Vossler said. “This also was a great way for them to work as a team.”

Vossler said a chance encounter with NCCC Interim Director of Nursing Chuck VanAnden, who sits on First Night’s Board of Directors, led to the class’ involvement in the event. Students in Vossler’s class had worked on the banners in years past, and she said she thought her current crop of students would enjoy it.

“It’s a perfect end-of-the-year project,” she said. “This was their final.”

Vossler divided the 10 students in the class into two teams of five. She gave them nearly a month to design and paint the canvas banners, which were provided by the First Night committee. Vossler said her students designed thumbnails and smaller-scale canvases before committing to the design of their banners.

“We start out very basic with talking about the elements: line, texture, color,” she said. “We really think about the figure ground, how one element will work with the other elements and can be emphasized one over the other. And then, by midterm, we concentrate more on the whole composition, and the projects get more complex. It was the perfect ending with the team project.”

Team one, made up of students Alexis Brice, Ellie Catchpoole, Ashley Hurd, Trevor Swinyer and Logan Zoeller, designed and painted a banner featuring two moose dancing under fireworks while a third moose skis a mountain range.

“We came up with this idea here that we wanted to focus on our moose and portraying them, but then still incorporate these ideas of the new year and the things that are happening,” she said. “So, there are fireworks and the mountains. We wanted to show a little bit of the area that we’re in. We wanted to incorporate the music side of things.”

Team two, made up of students Ashtin Doner, Sydney Schmidt, Jessica Schmidtka, Jordan Whitman and Erika Wolf, designed and painted a banner called “Jazz It Up” which features the silhouette of a saxophone player against a large moon.

Schmidtka said she was inspired by the “street party” feel of Saranac Lake.

“I could just picture a jazz band playing,” she said. “I thought it would be really cool to show him playing in the night.

“That’s really what it’s about, the spirit of music and dancing.”

Vossler said her students enjoyed the experience.

“They were very excited about doing something for the community and being involved in the scene,” she said. “That was real exciting.”

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