North Country students create art inspired by Winter Olympics
North Country students create art inspired by Winter Olympics
by Amy Feiereisel (Community Engagement Reporter) , in Lake Placid, NY – March 21,2025
Amy Feiereisel North Country students create art inspired by Winter Olympics
This winter, about four hundred students from schools in Essex, Franklin, and Clinton counties were making art inspired by the Winter Olympics. They came from eight different school districts, spanning from Tupper Lake to Beekmantown to Ticonderoga. Those students were mentored by a cast of international artists who are also Olympians or Paralympians.
The culmination of that project was an awards ceremony to celebrate the students’ art, held on March 8 at the Lake Placid Conference Center.
Over a hundred drawings and paintings from eight different North Country school districts are displayed gallery-style on a long wall inside the Olympic Center.
by Amy Feiereisel (Community Engagement Reporter) , in Lake Placid, NY – March 21,2025
Amy Feiereisel North Country students create art inspired by Winter Olympics
This winter, about four hundred students from schools in Essex, Franklin, and Clinton counties were making art inspired by the Winter Olympics. They came from eight different school districts, spanning from Tupper Lake to Beekmantown to Ticonderoga. Those students were mentored by a cast of international artists who are also Olympians or Paralympians.
The culmination of that project was an awards ceremony to celebrate the students’ art, held on March 8 at the Lake Placid Conference Center.
Over a hundred drawings and paintings from eight different North Country school districts are displayed gallery-style on a long wall inside the Olympic Center.
Art inspired by the Olympics has been around for centuries, as long as the games themselves have. Olympic posters have become an art form in their own right.
‘Olympism’ is a new art genre that’s been championed by Olympian artist Roald Bradstock. It blends Olympic ideals with artistic concepts, and draws inspiration from impressionism, futurism, and op-art.
It was a big influence for all the student artists here today.
This whole program was a big collaboration: between local schools through the New York State Region 5 Arts Teachers, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), and the Al Oerter Foundation’s Art of the Olympians platform, with support from NYS District 115th Assemblyman Billy Jones and the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.
All the students who participated had a mentor who is an Olympian or Paralympian artist. The mentors met with student art classes over video chat and individually critiqued each students’ artwork. Each piece was made by a different student artist, in lots of different mediums: paint, pastels, colored pencils. Many of the students I spoke with drew direct inspiration from their own life for their piece.
This was also a collaboration, started by Olympian artist Roald Bradstock, who we heard about earlier. His nickname is the ‘Olympic Picasso’. From afar, you see the Olympic rings emerge from a lot of smaller images and lines.
“He did most of the line work and all of the major writing himself. And then once that part was done, he sent it in to a bunch of different teachers in the area,” explained Welch.
Teachers received individual canvases, and about 100 high schoolers, including Welch, finished the mural. “The students actually got to write the names of fellow Olympians, and all these little circles on in between the lines and all the tiny little line work,” she said. The names included those of all the Winter Olympians who have come from the North Country.
The mural is fittingly called ‘Together.’
Art inspired by the Olympics has been around for centuries, as long as the games themselves have. Olympic posters have become an art form in their own right.
‘Olympism’ is a new art genre that’s been championed by Olympian artist Roald Bradstock. It blends Olympic ideals with artistic concepts, and draws inspiration from impressionism, futurism, and op-art.
It was a big influence for all the student artists here today.
This whole program was a big collaboration: between local schools through the New York State Region 5 Arts Teachers, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), and the Al Oerter Foundation’s Art of the Olympians platform, with support from NYS District 115th Assemblyman Billy Jones and the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.
All the students who participated had a mentor who is an Olympian or Paralympian artist. The mentors met with student art classes over video chat and individually critiqued each students’ artwork. Each piece was made by a different student artist, in lots of different mediums: paint, pastels, colored pencils. Many of the students I spoke with drew direct inspiration from their own life for their piece.
This was also a collaboration, started by Olympian artist Roald Bradstock, who we heard about earlier. His nickname is the ‘Olympic Picasso’. From afar, you see the Olympic rings emerge from a lot of smaller images and lines.
“He did most of the line work and all of the major writing himself. And then once that part was done, he sent it in to a bunch of different teachers in the area,” explained Welch.
Teachers received individual canvases, and about 100 high schoolers, including Welch, finished the mural. “The students actually got to write the names of fellow Olympians, and all these little circles on in between the lines and all the tiny little line work,” she said. The names included those of all the Winter Olympians who have come from the North Country.
The mural is fittingly called ‘Together.’
Shannon Piche-Smith is the chair of New York’s Region 5 Art Teachers Association. She got local art teachers on board for this initiative. She says she couldn’t pass up the opportunity for students to be a part of something bigger.
“What you’re seeing here is a collaboration between a teacher, a student and an Olympian artist. It’s wonderful,”
While the students’ artwork went home with them after the awards ceremony, works by the Olympian artist mentors, and Olympic artist LeRoy Neiman, are now on display in the Olympic Center Miracle Plaza Gallery.
Shannon Piche-Smith is the chair of New York’s Region 5 Art Teachers Association. She got local art teachers on board for this initiative. She says she couldn’t pass up the opportunity for students to be a part of something bigger.
“What you’re seeing here is a collaboration between a teacher, a student and an Olympian artist. It’s wonderful,”
While the students’ artwork went home with them after the awards ceremony, works by the Olympian artist mentors, and Olympic artist LeRoy Neiman, are now on display in the Olympic Center Miracle Plaza Gallery.