The Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, MO. hosted its 3rd annual Regional High School Student art show on March 7. Students from 24 different high schools in the St. Louis and St. Charles area were selected by their teachers to have their work displayed in a professional-style art gallery. The art pieces then were judged for awards by local St. Louis professional artist, Maxine Thirteen. Additionally, selected artworks were chosen and awarded by award sponsors. 15 Eureka students were chosen by their art teachers for the 2025 art gallery.
With his piece “Sk8 Park”, Caden Ghormley, 12, was selected by his art teacher for his art to be displayed in the Foundry’s gallery.
“It’s a stateboard but on the back there’s a straight part where I added scenery and people,” Ghormley said. “It took about a month. I collaged my drawings, painted the background and sealed it with modge podge.”
Selected for her four foot by four foot painting titled “Stained”, Bridget Peckham, 12, was another student chosen.
“I was experimenting with style for it, because typically I do an impressionist version of realism,” Peckham said. “But for this piece, I just really went away from that and did a little more pop art, a little more graphic.”
Peckham’s “Stained” was recognized by Mayor Dan Borgmeyer of St. Charles, with the Mayor’s Choice Award.
“It feels great to win something, even better to hear some of the things he said about it, like, being able to see the passion for the piece,” Peckham said.
While finding inspiration for a piece can be difficult, Peckham’s drive and ability to analyze others beyond surface level help push her distinctive creativity.
“With my art, I like to take characters and people that aren’t necessarily easy to see through or easy to understand and really play with seeing inside of them instead,” Peckham said. “It really plays with my love of psychology and understanding people and who they are.”
Along with Peckham’s Mayor’s Choice Award, three Eureka students earned Honorable Mentions, including Aaron Schuemen, 12, with his piece titled “Blue Echoes & Red Spotlights.”
“The idea was to use the concept of 3D glasses to show two different images on the same image,” Schueman said.
This unique style of art, called an anaglyph, requires two different drawings, one red and one blue, to be layered on top of eachother. It is meant to be viewed with 3D blue and red glasses to invert and show one piece at a time.
“So when you look at it with the red side of the glasses, it inverts it and shows you the blue drawing, and then when you look at it with blue, it inverts it and shows you the red,” Schueman said.
Another student who was awarded Honorable Mention is Ella Heisel, 12, with her piece titled “Through the Generations.”
“It’s a bathroom scene of a mom or an older sister looking into the mirror, applying makeup and I wanted it to represent beauty standards,” Heisel said. “And there’s a little girl looking up to her and I wanted it to show how we learn through generations based on what we see.”
Art has no boundaries, which gives everyone the opportunity to express themselves through any form of creativity. Most artists, like Heisel, have a distinct art style that reflects themselves as a person.
“I like to use a lot of colors,” Heisel said. “I try to make my pieces a little more bold and out there, because I’d like to think I’m not just a still life in this world.”
As an art teacher, Kristina Welch witnesses the amount of time and creativity that students put into their work. She supports her students completely and even selected a few pieces to be displayed in the Foundry’s art show.
“I just really enjoy seeing all the variety of works that come out of here,” Welch said. “a lot of the time students can be perfectionists. It kind of comes with being an artist so I make sure that they know that they are creating beautiful work.”
