“100 Cupcakes” Art Installation

When Shorecrest’s Marketing & Communications team was asked to design creative concepts for the community birthday cards for 2023, they knew they wanted the imagery to be festive and relate back to celebrating the School’s centennial. 

 

“I was originally thinking of designing an image of a cake with 100 candles,” said Jon Hoefer, Creative Director, “but then I thought maybe 100 smaller desserts, like cupcakes, would be a fun visual.”

 

Hoefer enjoys involving students and their creativity whenever possible in his projects. He approached Lori Auletta, Lower School Art Teacher, to discuss having her classes help out with this project. 

 

“I was thrilled when I heard about this project! We were about to start working with clay and I thought this would be perfect timing.” Auletta shared.

 

Auletta worked with her students to create 100 pieces of art with the theme of cupcakes for Sparky’s 100th birthday. Sparky is the school mascot, an animated lightning bolt. The students were told their artwork (whether it be 2D or 3D) needed to be no larger than 8” x 8” x 8”. Some students worked with clay, and others decided to draw or paint. After seeing rough drafts the students were producing, Hoefer selected about 10 paintings for the card project. “I was thrilled to see what the kids were creating! They were so imaginative and I knew the artwork would appear too small if I tried to put them all on one card. So I introduced the idea of making an art installation in the Raymund Round where we could showcase all 100 pieces.”

 

With the help of Brad Miller, Technical Director of Production Elements, and the facilities team, Hoefer was able to create his vision of an 80” x 88” wall shelving unit displaying 100 pieces of art created by Kindergarten through fourth grade students. It currently hangs on campus in the Raymund Center.

 

“The kids worked especially hard on their clay projects because of the pride that they take in being Chargers," added Auletta. "Each art piece was a special gift to their school on its 100th birthday.”

 

On February 24, fourth grade had a reception - and enjoyed some actual cupcakes - and proudly took photos standing by the new art installation they all helped create.

View more photos and videos here.