Mater Dei High School

The Mater Dei Visual Arts Department continues to excel at local, state and national art shows. Under the guidance of a tremendous teaching staff, Mater Dei art students have had work in a number of art shows including, Imagination Celebration, Color it Orange Juried Art Exhibition, California Art Education Association Youth Art Month Exhibition, and the Union Bank Hispanic Heritage Art Contest  to name a few.

Art Students Win Recognition

The Visual Arts Department is proud to announce that several of our students have been recognized for their outstanding talent. Eleven students were finalists in the all California, Hispanic Heritage Contest, sponsored by Union Bank. The students created artwork based on the theme "Celebrating Hispanic Heritage." Their works were chosen from among 600 entries statewide and were exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.

Arts Orange County sponsored the Imagination Celebration poster contest and nine Mater Dei art students were among the 18 finalists chosen from over 600 entries.  The poster designs were posted to the Spark OC website and Mater Dei junior Emily Carroll’s poster was chosen as the overall favorite.  Emily won a cash award and passes to Disneyland.

Mater Dei Takes the Lead at NCEA

Student artwork from the Diocese of Orange schools was prominently displayed at the National Catholic Education Association Convention in Anaheim during April 2009.  The committee responsible for collecting and displaying the over 400 pieces was chaired by Mater Dei Visual Art Department Chair Mrs. Catherine Wilson. With the help of the Mater Dei art teachers and teachers from other schools in the Diocese Catholic school teachers from all over the nation were able to see some of the outstanding artwork created by catholic school students in grades K through 12.

MD Art Teachers Share Knowledge

The California Art Educators Association (CAEA)’s annual conference takes place in November and Mater Dei High School will be there. Mrs. Catherine Wilson serves on the conference committee and was responsible for creating the “Virtual Student Art Show” which will prominently display art work from Mater Dei art students in the digital and ceramic arts. Mrs. Wilson will help CAEA ‘go green’ by burning and distributing the lesson plans from the workshops on CD’s rather than photocopying them on paper. Several Mater Dei art teachers will be presenting workshops; Mr. Mike Beringer on art history and Ms. Caroline Davies on  techniques in ceramics, Mrs. Wilson will also present two workshops on the use of Adobe software.