After working with an American Indian artist, Tyler Hogan used a skateboard as his canvas to display his culture.

To express herself, junior Emma Hernandez used ink for the first time to create a self-portrait with Day of the Dead symbolism surrounding her face.

They were just two of Pike High School’s art students who collaborated with American Indian artists and also explored their own cultures thanks to a grant from the Indiana Arts Commission.

This year, John Well-Off-Man shared his printmaking and photography techniques and taught students how his culture influences his art, said Myron Cochran, chairman of the Pike art department.

“He talked about how symbols vary from culture to culture, and we made our own symbols and talked about how they represent us,” said senior Phuoc Pham, 17.

Through connections at the Eiteljorg Museum and SullivanMunce Cultural Center in Zionsville, the Pike arts department arranged for four American Indian artists to visit classrooms and to have the students’ work hung in a professional setting.

Visiting artists led workshops, taught classes and worked one on one with students over the past two school years, Cochran said. Art teachers decided how the guests would work with their students.

For example, John Well-Off-Man “worked with students and teachers to describe how his Ojibwe and Cree Indian backgrounds have influenced his painting, photography and printmaking,” Cochran said.

In computer-graphics class, teacher Catherine Schlebecker had her students learn the art of printmaking and silk screening from John Well-Off-Man — classes not normally offered at Pike.

Ceramics teacher Christopher Dance showed students videos of primitive clay firing and built a primitive pit outside the school to fire the students’ work.

Pike received a $7,736 grant from the Arts Commission and was one of 17 institutions in the state to receive an Arts in Education grant, said Susan Britsch, commission community development manager and arts education coordinator. Money for the grants comes through the sale of the commission’s special license plates.

Grants were from $5,000 to $8,000 and were to be used in the 2009 calendar year.

“They had to make a case and develop a budget and have a one-to-one match in cash or in-kind service,” Britsch said. “They have to partner with arts organizations in the community and have a strong collaborative effort to offer something substantial to students.”

During the final phase of the grant, the students’ work will be on display through November at the SullivanMunce Cultural Center in an exhibit called “Influence: Impact of Culture on Art.”

The student art includes photography, ink drawing, painting, printmaking, jewelry and other three-dimensional artwork.

“Students will get to see their work in a professional setting,” Schlebecker said. “That’s something artists and some art teachers don’t even get to do.”