The annual North Kitsap School District Festival of the Arts is a way for students to really “get their creative juices flowing,” said seventh-grader Izzy Poole.

Poole is one of many students who will have their work shown during the festival, which includes students from every school in the district. Poole is one of the fashion students at Kingston Middle School who are working on a fashion show for the festival, making artistic clothes out of garbage bags.

“In the art show, we’re going to put them on, we’re going to walk across the state and then we’re going to have my friend Heidi (Lenz) over here talking about the dresses while we’re walking across the stage,” Poole said.

The festival will also include other performances like choirs, drummers, acrobatics, guitarists, dance and more. It will feature fiber arts, paintings and drawings, pottery, a “make and take” section, a community papier-mache project and more.

This year, it will be from 5-8 p.m. April 29 at Kingston Middle School. Admittance is free.

The location changes schools every year, said Kingston Middle School art teacher Diane Stewart.

“As art teachers, we get an opportunity to really be the leader of it for a year,” Stewart said, “which is kind of exciting. Kind of exciting and a little nerve wracking.”

Since this is Stewart’s year to be “the head honcho,” she added a unique feature to the festival: an Empty Bowls drive.

The Empty Bowl Drive held during the Festival of the Arts at Kingston Middle School April 29 with benefit ShareNet, a food bank and thrift store in Kingston. Photo by Michelle Beahm.

“It’s about a 25-30 year (old) thing, where artists make bowls and donate them, and then people will fill them with soup or salad or whatever the people decide, and then the people get to keep the bowls,” Stewart said. The bowls are “sold” for donations; the proceeds go to charity.

At the Festival of the Arts, the bowls will be filled with ice cream, and the donations, suggested at $10 but Stewart said people can donate more if they want, will go towards the local ShareNet, a food bank and thrift store in Kingston.

The donations are tax deductible.

“I wanted to make sure that I gave a clear message to my art students that I think art can make a real difference in the world,” Stewart said, “so whenever artists take their time and donate pieces of artwork and then give the money away, I think that’s a very important message.

“That they know that art really can save the world, like the bumper sticker says.”

Keith Hagenbrock, a Kingston Middle School student, shows off the bowl he painted for the Empty Bowl drive. Photo by Michelle Beahm.

But the festival is benefitting more than just ShareNet. It also benefits students.

“I think that we see a lot of athletes shining and we get to see a lot of people have a way to celebrate their uniqueness,” Steward said, “and I think the Festival of the Arts really brings out a lot of kids that might be overlooked, and so I think it really gives some kids an opportunity to seriously shine.”

Lenz said, “It shows (students) teamwork, working with others, getting ideas from all sorts of places and it just boosts their creativity and their social life.”

Poole added, “It’s fun for people to look at their friends’ art.”

The participating students have the chance to win prizes. Each art teacher chooses six or seven pieces of art to “win,” and the superintendent Patty Page picks an elementary, middle and high school piece of art to buy and then display at the district administration building for a year.

Autumn Hale, a seventh-grader from Kingston Middle School, participated in last year’s festival, and received one of the prizes.

“It made me feel like I had accomplished something,” Hale said, “because I had made a vessel and when I won the award, it just, it felt amazing to win, and my whole family’s proud of me because of it.”

Stewart said, “everybody has a right to have their art be seen, no matter what level they’re at.

“I think that people are really happy that we’ve done this sort of thing. It’s just nice to see people so excited.”

For more information about the Festival of the Arts, visit the district website, www.nkschools.org. For more information about the Empty Bowls Project, visit www.emptybowls.net.