The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are an annual art competition that empower young creatives. Run by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the awards were founded in 1923 and have sense featured a number of notable alumni including Andy Warhol (1945), Sylvia Plath (1947), Langston Hughes (1947), Red Grooms (pop artist, 1952), and Stephen King (1965). Students in grades 7 through 12 across the country enter their artwork and writing every year, including hundreds of students in APS and here at H-B.
This year, H-B artists submitted their works in December and January, in categories ranging from film, to photo, to studio art. In total, H-B students received a total of 183 awards, across Gold and Silver Keys, Honorable Mentions, and American Vision Awards. A staggering 96 of those awards were Gold Keys! Students across middle and high school earned Gold Keys in studio art (57), photography (37), and film (2).
A ceremony to celebrate these achievements will be held this Wednesday, March 5th, at 6:30pm at Kenmore Middle School. All are welcome to attend and see some of the art created by APS students. Additionally, Gold Key individual and portfolio works are exhibited now through March 27th on the second floor of the Syphax Education Center, in the school board office hallway. Some additional H-B student’s works are displayed here at H-B, on the ground floor outside of the art room.
The American Vision Award is a special recognition awarded to only a few artists a year. The award focuses on the “core values of originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal voice.” Five winners from APS will progress to the national level where the winner will receive the $500 scholarship. This year, two H-B students received this honor, one in photography (Grant Wardian) and one in painting (Ayden Hall).
I interviewed Hall about her winning painting “My Whole Life for 10 Cents Ribbons” (oil on canvas). The painting was spurred by an art class assignment last year based on a “messiest drawer” and features a box of Hall’s equestrian ribbons she keeps under her bed. Among her AP art class, Hall is known for her paintings featuring horses she works with. This piece is a still-life and more experimental than her usual animal compositions, which she describes as more tangible recreations of her animals, encompassing the essence of her animals, whereas the ribbons represent specific memories. Because of the subject, shiny multi-colored ribbons, Hall was able to showcase her oil painting skills in creating a smooth texture and the reflections on the curves of the ruffles. Hall also pointed out a brown ribbon in the upper right of the painting which was a ribbon she really wanted to include in the piece. The ribbon, called the “Hit the Dirt Award,” commemorates when she first fell off a horse. She remarked the ribbon was “a funny mark of horse people.”
Hall described her process of creating this painting to me:
First, she takes several photos to find the right reference angle for the painting composition. Once she gets the perfect photograph, she sketches the composition onto the canvas and sprays a workable fixative onto the canvas. Workable fixative is a spray medium that seals the pencil sketch so when she goes to tone the canvas with acrylic paint (toning is like setting a base layer), the pencil doesn’t smear. After toning the canvas with acrylic paint, she will move to the main medium, oil paint, and build up the painting using two passes (in the case of this painting; sometimes oil paintings require more passes).
Hall did the first pass using paint mixed with linseed oil, which allows the paint to glide more smoothly over the canvas, but also makes white, yellow, and red paint more translucent. The second pass allows her to make the color more opaque and define the shadows of the piece. Hall says in this piece particularly she really went over the blue and red ribbons, as well as white highlights and detailed writing for opacity.
The whole painting took Hall around 20 hours of painting, not including the long drying time of oil paint in between layers. It was roughly completed last school year, and then refined this fall as part of her AP art portfolio.
Seniors at H-B this year did particularly great in their portfolio submissions. Seniors (12th grade) submit a portfolio of six works that follow a cohesive theme. All 14 portfolios submitted won Gold Keys (8 in studio art, 6 in photography). The winning portfolios are as follows:
A Lens of Imagination by Malia Ornelas (Studio Art)
Theme: Representation of the “imaginative lens I view the world through.” Each piece is a testament to childhood fantastical wonder, and in each “ [I] refus[e] to relinquish my imagination to the pressure of age and critique.”
All Seeing Eyes by Ellie Arterburn (Photography)
Theme: Macro photography of geckos and lizards, with a focus on the eyes of the animals.
Beneath the Gray: Calm Greyhounds and Clouded Peace by Angie Patarroyo Torres (Studio Art)
Theme: “Expressing myself through greyhounds and gray skies.”
Concrete by Will Ives (Photography)
Theme: Architecture images that trick the viewer, highlighting angles and perspective to create unique compositions.
Disassociation by Beckett Milam (Studio Art)
Theme: Collection of works inspired by internet core, maximalism, and exploring disassociation.
Exploring Wearable Art by Jay Young (Studio Art)
Theme: An exploration of how wearable art can reflect an environment, physically, metaphorically, and materially.
Inside out perspective. by Sean Naff (Studio Art)
Theme: Pieces that uplift old and obsolete subjects in their composition.
Kaleidoscope by Jay Young (Studio Art)
Theme: An exploration of vibrancy in shape, color, composition, style, and subject matter. Draws inspiration from kaleidoscope-like designs, psychedelic patterns, and maximalism. A testament to creating art in a flow state of creativity.
Light Manipulation by Emme Cobb (Studio Art)
Theme: Focuses on “light manipulation on Porches through the decades.”
The Boarder of Nature and Man by Miles Green (Photography)
Theme: Exploring Natural beauty in comparison to human beauty.
The Study of Light at the Barn by Ayden Hall (Studio Art)
Theme: Highlighting the way light shines throughout barns and on horses.
Water’s Calmness by Miles Green (Photography)
Theme: Using slow shutter speed to photograph water, highlighting smooth texture of water surfaces.
Monotone by Pierce Wardian (Photography)
Reclaimed by Nature by Naya Chopra (Photography)
These students also are lucky to have access to great teachers in their classes, including Monica Stroik (Studio Art), Zach Norrbom (Studio Art), George Laumann (Photography), and Kathleen Akerley (Film). We are so proud of all the amazing work H-B students submitted, and the great accomplishments of receiving these awards! Artists here at H-B work very hard at their craft, and we are glad it has paid off!
