In an effort to celebrate Mansfield’s 125th Anniversary, the Art Department will be participating in a city-wide art competition by submitting artwork on May 15, for the show on the 26.

“Mansfield will be having a show dedicated to its history and it will be educational,” teacher Dallas Williams said. “There also is a goal to create a coffee table book full of the artworks they choose to represent our city.”

Williams said that participating in this project gives students the chance to be a part of history.

“Art is a personal representation and to have members of Mansfield create artwork about its history, you’re (also) creating your personal touches,” she said.

Along with creating a piece of artwork, students were required to do research.

“It’s really cool that we’re getting to do a project that we have to do some research for,” junior Sarah Banchs said. “It’s something we don’t normally do.”

For most regular art projects, students are given a prompt built solely on imagination or experience.

“Normally, we don’t have to do any research,” Banchs said. “We also haven’t done anything related to the city of Mansfield.”

Junior Daniel Ortega said this assignment is helping him learn more about the city’s history.

“What is cool about this project is that us students get to learn about where we live,” he said.

Williams said she has allowed for the students to decide how they want to present their research.

“Media choice is open to anything, and every person has their own views of Mansfield being landscape, war or architecture,” she said. “Every student is attracted to a different aspect of the city, so there’s a wide variety of artwork.”

Rather than just creating a piece about its history, Ortega said he is going for a view of the city.

“My plan for this project is to paint the landscape,” he said. “Mansfield is turning 125 years old, so I plan to actually paint the old fields we have.”

Ortega said he wants to express the beauty of the city through his piece.

“I chose to do this because that is what Mansfield is known for,” he said. “Every time you go outside you see nice trees, beautiful grass and flowers. That’s what I grew up to and what I know.”

Banchs is also choosing to portray the city’s nature.

“I planned on doing a landscape painting of bluebonnets on low hills, like near Highway 360,” she said. “There are so many bluebonnets in Texas, especially Mansfield. They’re all over the place.”

Ortega is excited about the assignment.

“(This) changes my view on how art is really based on history and not just painting and drawing,” he said. “I never thought I would do a project based on people who weren’t artists or about another painting, but really we’re going to paint or draw about something that’s around us.”

Using art to represent the city will make people see it a different way, Banchs said.

She said, “It will help the people who view art to realize how special Mansfield really is and how different this city is from other cities in Texas.”