Downtown Doors as Canvas: 3 Lincoln Artists Honored
Lincoln’s Winners For Downtown Doors. Nancy Urbina(top left), Laela Keo(bottom left), Gibson Davis(right corner)
Over twenty local high schools entered the annual SJ Downtown Doors competition. Three Lincoln students were chosen to have their digital art on the SJ downtown doors. There were only twenty spots available and each school was allotted ten entries. Laela Keo, Gibson Davis, and Nancy Urbina, were the three Lincoln students that were chosen.
In 2003, San Jose Downtown Foundation started a youth public art exhibit and competition. Every year, 700 students from different high schools in San Jose get the opportunity to have their art chosen to be displayed on the downtown doors. The students artwork is judged and selected. The artwork is chosen to be displayed on service doors and utility boxes, throughout the major streets in downtown San Jose.
Since the beginning of the program, it has grown from four host sites to over 100. More then $115,000 has been awarded to student artists and school art departments.
Laela Keo told Lincoln Lion Tales, “I told the story of my grandma coming from Vietnam to California.” She included many details about the region that her grandmother came from onto her digital art piece.
It took her about two to three weeks to complete the piece and she felt very honored to have her art displayed on the downtown doors.
Laela didn’t think she would get the opportunity to have her digital art piece on the downtown doors but got the news that she was one of the three students that got chosen from the competition from Lincoln.
Ms. Thai inspires her to continue her interest in digital art. She is thinking about pursuing a career in photography because she likes to take pictures and put them all together.
Gibson Davis told Lincoln Lion Tales, “I asked my family about some traditions that we have and they gave me some answers and I based that around my great grandfather.” It took him about two weeks to complete his digital artwork.
He says that he produces better and prefers manual art over digital art and has more experience with manual art. He is thinking about pursuing a career in art.
Nancy Urbina told Lincoln Lions, “This was originally a class project and she told us to put stuff together that meant something to the person whom we were doing it about.” It took Nancy about a week or two to complete her digital art piece.
Nancy’s digital artwork was about her mom and a background story about her mom. She added what her mom likes and where her mom is from.
She didn’t believe that her artwork was going on be on the downtown doors. “When Ms.Thai told me I had been one of the chosen winners I was kind of like, What, really?”
Nancy said that her mom took photography class in San Jose City College and her mom took her to that class. Then Nancy realized that she enjoyed photography so she decided to take a class at Lincoln.
Elisa is a freshman at Lincoln High School. She was born October 16,2004. She is Latina, Mexican-American. She has long dark brown hair that shines in...
