The halls of Seaside Heights Elementary School were alive with the sounds of rope skipping, upbeat Zumba and jiu-jitsu and the smells of paint, glue and tortillas during the school’s two-day Celebration of the Arts event.

The event, which absorbed the school’s campus for a few hours June 1 and 2, made only its second appearance at Seaside Heights this year, but the tradition is inconspicuously mature as it was brought to Seaside along with dozens of students with the closure of Cannon Beach Elementary School in 2013.

Seaside Heights has embraced the tradition, which truly is a celebration of all the arts, from performance to visual and culinary. Inside the gymnasium, cafeteria, library and classrooms, volunteer community artists taught students how to tie-dye T-shirts, make greeting cards, construct cardboard critters, create sand dollar ornaments, quilt, paint Pysanky eggs and many other skills.

Out front of the school, Josh Fry oversaw a group of young students decked in ear-loop face masks who were using spray paint and stencils to make works depicting superheroes and outer space landscapes. He guessed for many of the students it was one of the first times they were granted adult permission to unleash canisters of aerosol paint upon open canvases.

Fry confessed, at one time, he did not consider himself an artist, because he was not proficient with charcoals or other mediums. Then he saw spray paint used as an art form and figured it was something he could do. After trying it, he said, “I caught the bug.” He described it as “a wonderful artistic loophole,” more accessible to those who aren’t good with traditional art forms and easy to learn.

The students, Fry said, appeared to have a good time with the spray paint art.

“They all finished and they all made a piece they can be proud of,” he said, adding those who discovered a particular affinity for the art now have a basic understanding that can be developed through practice and experimentation.

Inside the gymnasium, Fred Meyer and his son, Erik, were leading a slightly more contained project where students painted houses and fish on small slabs of wood cut in the correct shape to give the students a blank silhouette to work with. Fred Meyer, originally from Detroit, Mich., typically calls the multi-color, wiggly structures “Ghetto Houses,” but for the West Coast they’ve been retitled “Beach Houses.” Erik Meyer is more known for the fish pieces. This was the first time the duo led a workshop at Seaside’s Celebration of the Arts, an event Fred Meyer believes is “super great” because it helps foster an appreciation for the arts at a grade school he admires.

“I’m really impressed with all the stuff they’re doing,” he said.

Nearby the Meyers’ station, Judi Garrity also was making her first appearance for the art celebration, teaching her group how to craft an array of colorful, interesting critters from boxes, straws, paper, tape and other tidbits that soon will inhabit the school’s library. On the first day of the event, each student constructed a smaller critter, and on the second day, those who wanted to teamed up to manufacture larger pieces.

Fifth-grader Evan Rodriguez, who made a neat turtle worthy of display, said he had fun doing the project, although he was at first unsure whether he would enjoy it. He chose the box critter activity because he “wanted to try something new.” From doing the project, he said, “I learned how to be more creative with my work.” Fellow student Jacob Bonn, who constructed a large caterpillar named “Candy Bow,” said the activity was “amazing.”

The Celebration of the Arts event gives students the opportunity to find a creative venue that fits their skills, interests and learning styles. For instance, Garrity said, the box critters would not be good for kinesthetic learners, whereas jiu-jitsu, lead by Adamson Bros. Mixed Martial Arts and Jiu Jitsu Academy, might be.

The visual arts pieces created over the course of the event were displayed for family members and the public during a barbecue the evening of June 5.

Other work also will have an extended lifespan, such as a video tour created by Seth Morrisey, of Morrisey Video Production Company, that featured students who wanted to try speaking on camera. The project was a way to give the students another creative option and also to make a useful informational tool for the school, he said.