Over seventy pieces of art tok over the Flag Lobby at Westford Academy in October. This means the art calendar is back, an art competition that has been taking place at WA since the 1983-1984 school year.

Fourteen pieces were voted by faculty and staff to represent WA in the art calendar. Top voted students were Emma Hill and Audrey Sequeira.

The art calendar was started in 1983 by a teacher named Joan Longobardi, who wanted a way to raise funds for the art club. The calendar still raises money for the art club today along with money for a field trip for art students to New York.

Students from various art classes spend about a month in class, and anywhere from several to fifty hours outside school working on pieces to be entered. The drawings are started in September and finished in mid-October.

The pictures are of places in Westford, or just pictures of student’s hobbies, pets, or a picture of something they feel very excited about. Hill drew a picture of a horse while Sequeira drew a picture of shoes against a wall. In the beginning of the calendar’s history, photos were done in ink only, but as technology for printing improved, pictures were done in a dark graphite pencil called ebony pencil.

The art calendar is also the only art competition at Westford Academy, and only fourteen entries will make the calendar (12 for the months, plus another two for the front cover and back cover).

Art teacher Ed Hardy explained how the competition factor increased excitement with the art students.

“The kids really get excited about the competition because not many of our assignments have a competitive component to it, and so when there is one, the kids get both nervous and excited. But they all have fun in the end,” Hardy said.

The competition was heightened for kids in advanced visual art classes. This was in part because they know what to expect and have gone through the process in earlier visual art 1 and 2 classes, as art teacher Kelly Fitzsimmons explains.

“They kind of know what to expect, and they really want to be in the calendar so they put a lot of time into it,” Hardy said.

For teachers like Hardy, favorite pieces come down to taking time, and the details.

“I think when students take the time to put in the details on things like bricks and stones and foliage they usually stand out to me,” Hardy said.

Creativity of the pieces do play a part according to Ila Jagannath, a junior whose piece will be in the calendar this year.

“I tried to just choose something that no one else was doing because everyone’s doing their dog and they can’t just put fourteen dogs in the calendar, right?” said Jagannath.

Along with dogs, popular places to draw included parts of WA, the J.V. Fletcher Library, The Westford Museum, Parkerville, and Kimballs. No matter what they decide to draw the process is the same. Students take one to two weeks to find a good picture. From then on, they fold the picture into one by one inch squares and then make the drawing in three by three inch squares doing each square individually.

Hardy said the process is one that takes quite some time, especially on a large piece of paper with pencil. Jagannath also echoed Hardy’s words talking about how the process took a long time.

The calendars will be able to be purchased at the Holiday Bazaar at WA on December 2nd.