Hudson High School art students create art for company's headquarters
Fleet Response is continually committed to working with the community where it lives and works through long-lasting partnerships and community-based delivery.
This can be seen through the latest partnership with Hudson High School and four of its students creating canvases to displayed in the newly built office space located at West Executive Parkway and Boston Mills Road. Julie Mawaka, Fleet Response representative, reached out to the high school’s art teacher, Carolyn Huber, about the opportunity for her students to create art for the company’s new office space.
The students creating the artwork chose to be part of this collaboration as part of their National Honor Society volunteer hours. Each student was given their own 24×36 canvas and given the simple direction to paint a guitar. Students were given minimal guidelines and were able choose their mediums, style, and own visual concept.
The four students creating the canvases are seniors Megan Zhao and Kathryn Palmieri, along with sophomores Evian Czirok and Audra Lozina.
Zhao is excited to participate in this collaboration, “I’m excited about receiving a straightforward prompt and getting to be creative with it.”
Lozina, also eager for this collaboration, said, “I’m looking to use my talents for art in the community and be able to create something to make people smile.”
The students’ artwork will be displayed in the second-floor kitchen area of the new Hudson headquarters, called the Rock Hall. Before moving to the headquarters, the previous Rock Hall featured guitars and music artwork which made it a very memorable space in the previous office.
With the new HQ, Fleet wanted to re-create the Rock Hall by displaying some of the same artwork used previously but also adding pieces of the Hudson community through this collaboration.
“These four students totally get what we’re trying to do, and they’re excited to come up with really innovative, cool art that really fits the Rock Hall space,” Mawaka said.
Representatives from Fleet Response met with students at the beginning of February to meet the students, deliver the canvases and talk about the project. For most of the students, this is the first time their artwork will be displayed outside of their home and school.
“I am excited to be working on a piece of art for Fleet Response because I love doing art and I have never had my art displayed before,” said Czirok.
Palmieri also was very excited to display her artwork at the HQ, saying “I have never made such a big painting before, and it is very cool to have my art displayed outside of my home and school.”
Over the course of the project, students shared updates on their projects with photos, and videos of the progress they made.
On May 4, the grand reveal was held at Hudson High School in the Media Center. Each student was able to reveal their canvas and explain their painting and why they chose the style and mediums. Julie Mawaka, along with husband Scott Mawaka, CEO and president of Fleet Response, attended the reveal.
The completed paintings will be hung at Fleet Response HQ in their Rock Hall, with a portrait having a special focus on the first floor near the lobby being changed every couple of months.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Company's headquarters to display Hudson High School students' artwork
