North Las Vegas students uses art to raise environmental awareness
Desert Rose High School senior C’Onie Jefferson has been an artist for as long as she can remember.
She started in fourth grade, drawing cartoon characters. Later, she drew the things around her.
“It’s just my way of escaping,” said Jefferson, 17.
Now she uses her skills to raise awareness of social and environmental issues.
Jefferson of North Las Vegas was one of more than 20 finalists from schools across the Las Vegas Valley and one of two from Desert Rose to compete in the Earth Day Everyday art contest at GREENFest, held April 20 at Downtown Summerlin. Jefferson’s classmate, Alejandra Quezada, also was a finalist. About 300 pieces of art were submitted for the competition.
Paul Guillaume, visual arts instructor at Desert Rose in North Las Vegas, said his students already were having an in-class Earth Day competition around the same time. He had his students enter their projects into the GREENFest competition.
Jefferson painted a watercolor image of a baby spider monkey looking into the distance for its father after climbing too high in a tree, she said.
“We were watching a segment of ‘Planet Earth’ in class, and I learned about the endangerment of them and how humans are contributing to that,” she said. “They live in trees, and most of the trees that are cut down are for human use. After I researched it more and it went into more detail, I saw that they’re really in danger. We need to see who we’re taking from so we can put a face with it. Not only are we taking trees from their natural environments, we’re also taking away homes.”
Guillaume said he bases his arts class on a social and cultural foundation, teaching students to learn more about issues in the world through painting .
“Because we have such a diverse community, it’s important that we honor that diversity by honoring other cultures,” Guillaume said.
Desert Rose principal Janice Polley-Augente said she was “touched” by Jefferson’s drawing.
“The amount of thought put into each of the drawings was incredible,” she said. “It shows how meaningful this assignment was to them.”
Contact Mia Sims at msims@