Gina Jostes third time DaVinci Fest winner

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Gina Jostes

Gina Jostes finds inspiration for her clothing design in many different forms. Jostes explains what inspires her, "Anything will do; a beautiful day, a particularly happy smile, certain colors, the movement of snow, a relationship, a character, and so on, and so forth. My imagination goes wild when my emotions are touched and I feel something that can be translated into an image".

She stands behind her art work with flaming amounts of pride and amusement.  Senior Gina Jostes, recently won an award at the DaVinci Fest for the third time as an art grand champion.  This year her art piece titled ‘The Mad Hatter’s Garb’ won an award in the category of mixed media.  Jostes explains how art is a rare form of non-verbal expression that she wishes everyone had the chance to induce.

Jostes’s unceasing amount of love and passion for art really shines through in her work.  Ever since she was young, she knew that art was something she would always be passionate about.  Art has always been a huge part of her life, and it really took off around 7th grade when she got a drawing instructions book and a sketchbook from her mother to entertain her on a plane ride to see her relatives.  She started off drawing on her own, but around halfway through 9th grade she began taking classes at Off The Wall Art Studio with Karron Nottingham once a week, and she has not stopped since.

Jostes explains what sparks her inspiration, “Anything will do; a beautiful day, a particularly happy smile, certain colors, the movement of snow, a relationship, a character, and so on, and so forth. My imagination goes wild when my emotions are touched and I feel something that can be translated into an image.”

Jostes won the title of Senior Division Art Grand Champion for her Mad Hatter costume, an ensemble that many people at the school probably saw her wear during Halloween. It’s based off of the character of the Mad Hatter -or Tarrant Hightopp- in Tim Burton’s 2010 rendition of Alice in Wonderland. She also won first place in the Senior Division Mixed Media for a piece called, “The Cogs Are Turning” which consists of several layers of different materials, including: paint, lace, paper, photograph, and miscellaneous bits and pieces. She had a theme going this year of Madness -madness in terms of abandoning yourself to a dance, or letting emotions pour out of you and onto a piece of paper.  She has received the title of Junior Division Art Grand Champion in 2013, Senior Division Art Grand Champion in 2014, and first place in the Senior divisions Fiber Art and Mixed Media in 2015.

Jostes said, “I enjoy creating pieces with many types of media; I’ve done a lot of sketching and painting, but I also make pieces with mixed media, where one part is painted, the next is collage, and another might be drawn. One of my favorite kinds of art is Fashion Design. I love designing clothes based on whatever may inspire me, and I’ve made quite a few of my sketches into realities.”

Jostes plans to attend the College of Design at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities next year for an Apparel Design major and a business minor. She has been accepted at the school and has just recently confirmed her enrollment there. If possible she would love to continue to do design related work in her future, whether it be high end fashion or theater costuming, it is something she plans to figure out as she goes about her career.  However if things turn sour she will have the business minor that she can fall back on.

“I don’t consider art a hobby at this point in my life, it’s an important part of me and it’s how I express what I feel without having to put it into words,” Jostes said.