Five St. Albert students hope to carve, cut, sketch and sew their way to gold next week as they take on Alberta’s best at the annual Skills Canada competition.
About 700 high-school and post-secondary students from across Alberta will come to the Edmonton Expo Centre this May 13 to 14 for the 2015 Provincial Skills Canada tournament. The annual event has students showcase their abilities in one of 45 different trades by completing a tough project in less than two days.
Five of those students are from St. Albert.
St. Albert Catholic High is fielding three competitors.
Grade 12 student Nicole Teixeira is competing in the intermediate bridal hairstyling event.
Teixeira took gold in this category at the regional Skills competition last month – a big improvement over her 13th-place showing last year.
“I think I have a natural talent for it,” Teixeira says of hairstyling.
Teixeira won regionals with an unusual bridal haircut that involved flower ornaments and three ribbon-like ponytails looped up around the head. She needed just 45 of the 90 minutes she was allotted, giving her plenty of time to perfect her creation.
It’s not the most practical of hairdos, and would probably fly apart with any movement, she says.
“My sister asked me if she could have her hair done like this for her wedding. I told her (that) if she didn’t want to move all day, she could.”
Joining her at Skills will be Grade 10 student Kassidy Constantin, who will demonstrate how to do a bridal braid hairdo for the job skills competition (in which competitors demonstrate and explain how to do a complex task).
Constantin says she was brought in as a last-minute substitution on Monday after the school’s original job-skills candidate dropped out. She’s since worked closely with cosmetology teacher Assunta Runco to prepare a project for next week.
Rounding out the team is Grade 11 designer Becky Boyd, who will create a mid-length denim spring coat with a hem that’s high at the sides and low in the front and back.
“I’ve been really passionate about (fashion) since middle school,” Boyd says, noting that a draw-your-own-fashion-design sketchbook she got as a kid might have sparked her interest in the field.
“I really love creating stuff and making an original design and having someone compliment me about it.”
Paul Kane will have two students at provincials: Martin Kolacz in graphic design and Evan Gamble in cabinetmaking.
Gamble says he picked up woodcraft from his grandfather, who was a woodworker with his own workshop.
“Ever since I was four or five, I’d go down there and hammer things together.”
But it wasn’t until last year when he bought some high-end woodworking tools that his passion for carpentry took fire.
“It turns out it’s all in the tools. You can’t really enjoy woodworking with tools that don’t work properly.”
Gamble, who’s also juggling his Advanced Placement exams right now, says he’s been spending hours after school in recent weeks to prepare for provincials, during which he’ll have to build a small chair to precise specifications in 13 hours. That sounds like a lot, but it goes fast, he notes.
Gamble says he hopes to keep doing carpentry as a hobby while he gets into mechanical engineering.
Teixeira says she plans to enrol at Edmonton’s MC College this fall to become a professional stylist with her own salon.
“It’s something I find I can create anything with,” she says of hairstyling.
“People look at a piece of hair and think you can do basic things with it like curl or straighten, but there’s so many different techniques you can learn to create different structures and very unique, striking styles.”
Skills Canada events give you confidence in your abilities, Teixeira says – confidence that’s essential when you want to convince a customer to put their hair in your hands.
“It really shows you that you do have a lot of skills.”
First-place finishers at provincials will advance to the national Skills Canada tournament in Saskatoon this May 27 to 30.
Visit skillsalberta.com/awards-ceremony for live coverage of the awards ceremony next May 14 starting at 5:30 p.m.
