And they’re up.

Brilliantly decorated artistic banners – with two coming from Portage College Fine Arts students – are now displayed on street-posts along St. Paul’s downtown Main Street.

The banners, more than two-dozen in all, have been created again this year for a unique community revitalization project, using colours and creativity to capture the cultural, historical, and geographic highlights of the northeastern Alberta region. Now in its ninth year, the project was the brainchild of St. Paul artist Herman Poulin. With the assistance of community donations and sponsorships, all the supplies are sent at no charge to the artists. Organizers also offer painting workshops for anyone needing a few painting pointers.

“It is part of Champions for Change, a not-for-profit group, with a mandate of beautifying the downtown and a way to feature local artists,” says Penny Fox, the general manager of the St. Paul Community Futures office, the agency that oversees the project. “The banners – 27 this year - are provided to our not-for-profit organizations and they have their members, or an artist they know, paint them.”

This year, that list included youth from local high schools, community members, businesspeople, local artists and the two students from Portage College.

Abby St. Jean and Riley Gladue were more than eager to offer their perspectives to the project. The recent graduates of the one-year Portage College Fine Arts Certificate program used bright acrylic latex paints and their own inspiration to bring their tall canvas creations to life.

Gladue, who is from the Kikino Métis Settlement, spent her creative hours working bright colours of a northern Alberta late afternoon into a picturesque vista with Indigenous tones. A set of tipis and a Red River Cart dot the landscape in her banner, all standing proudly under a colourful sky featuring the swirls and shades of late summer sun.

“A lot of my art is from my Indigenous culture,” says Gladue who is returning to Portage College this fall to take the Indigenous Arts Certificate program.

While she has already created and displayed large art pieces, including a moosehide and paintings at Lac La Biche’s J.A. Williams High School where she graduated in 2024, Gladue is excited to have her banner in the Champions for Change project. “I love doing things like that. I really like to see my art on display.”

St. Jean is equally pleased to have her banner in the community project. Her pictorial, painted on each side of a six-foot-tall canvas banner features the Northern Lights dancing over a boreal forest and a northern lake as the sun sets on the horizon. Drawing her inspiration from starry nights above her family’s Plamondon-area home, St. Jean hopes the imagery brings a feeling of peace, tranquility, and natural beauty.

“Those components, the trees, the Northern Lights and the water, they make for great colours,” St. Jean said, adding that she may re-enter the Fine Arts program again next year in an audit capacity where she will take the classes, learn new skills, but not for marks.

Both women say their instruction at the college, including the opportunity for projects like the St. Paul banners, has been extremely rewarding.

I think I’m taking my art more seriously,” she said, crediting faculty members in the program like Pierre Oberg. “Pierre has been really helpful, inspiring me ... getting me to have more ambition, to do more serious work. I’ve really getting into it and learning the fundamentals again.”

The banners will remain on display along the downtown St. Paul street until October. The banners crafted by St. Jean and Gladue can be found outside the Portage College St. Paul campus.

For anyone interested in Fine Arts and Indigenous Art studies, Portage College offers certificate and diploma programming. More details on the programs can be found here.