Eagle Tech Academy senior spearheads first-ever Columbia City Art Crawl

COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. (WPTA) - Throughout various businesses in downtown Columbia City Thursday, the community got the chance to see the incredible artistic talents of students in the area, but it couldn’t have happened without the vision of one Eagle Tech Academy senior.

“I mean, I’m just an 18-year-old senior who’s doing a project for school, like I had no expectation of it getting to this point,” Alex Ressler said.

Alex Ressler has learned low expectations can sometimes lead to big results.

“I was never thinking that it would ever get to be this big,” Ressler said.

For the past four months, Ressler, a senior at Eagle Tech Academy, has been working on a special school project. He’s enrolled in a class called ‘Senior Capstone’, which challenges students to make an impact in their community with one final high school project.

Ressler took that challenge head on and organized Columbia City’s first-ever Art Crawl.

“It was a lot of work, but something that Eagle Tech Academy really promotes is to push yourself and to go past what you think your boundaries are,” Ressler said.

So, what is the Art Crawl?

It’s like it sounds: throughout downtown Columbia City, local businesses displayed 107 pieces of student art for the community to enjoy.

Ressler hopes it’s an event that can help the city grow.

“You go and you see and you enjoy all of the student art work that is there in the businesses, but you also are going in and seeing what the businesses have to offer and seeing the businesses that we offer here in the downtown area,” Ressler said.

Ressler hopes the event will not only bring exposure to the arts in Columbia City, but also give young artists the confidence to express themselves.

“I’m hoping that when they come and walk around the Art Crawl and they see all of this art that we have displayed here and how many people are coming out to appreciate their art, that they’re willing to be more open with their art,” Ressler said.

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