Six art students from the Hun School received regional Scholastic Art Awards in February.
The North East Regional contest is a part of a national contest by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards that recognize student’s selected artwork in grades 7-12 for scholarships and awards.
“I had 15 students submit work,” Hun School AP Art class teacher Stacy Collingham said. “Most of the winners came from the AP art class. I would guess I had more than 30 pieces submitted from the AP class. But winners also spread throughout my other classes.
Her other classes outside of AP include Intro to Photo, Photo 2 and an Advanced Techniques class. She has been teaching at the Hun Schoo, which is located in Princeton, for more than 24 years and her art classes have participated in this regional contest for the last five years.
One of her student winners was junior Erika Lee, who won eight regional awards in the contest. Her awards were three gold keys, two silver keys and an honorable mention.
According to the Scholastic Awards officials, a gold key is for the very best works submitted to Region-at-Large programs. Gold Key works are automatically considered for national-level recognition. A silver key is for stand-out works submitted to Region-at-Large programs that demonstrate exceptional ability. Honorable Mention is for accomplished works submitted to Region-at-Large programs showing great skill and potential.
“Her gold key piece ‘American Woman’ is a self portrait,” Collingham said. “It is a print. She carved linoleum (a floor covering), she has the American flag and parts of the American flag. It is very graphic she has a lot of line work in her face and she is partially wrapped in the flag. Not a lot of high school students have experience in print making, so this art medium was in her favor.”
She said that Erika had submitted at least twelve art work pieces.
The rest of the winners were junior Kelly Liu, who won a Gold Key, junior Sabrina Niu, who won a Gold Key and Honorable Mention, junior Ziyang Zhu won four Silver Keys and Honorable Mention, sophomore Khushi Agrawal, who won a Silver Key and Honorable Mention, and junior Sofia Weingarten, who won an Honorable Mention.
Gold Key Award winners advance to Scholastic’s national contest, which includes scholarships of up to $10,000.
“There is going to be voting for Erika, Kelly and Sabrina to see if they advance from there. We have not heard about the next level yet,” Collingham said.
Gold Key award winners will find out if they are national medalists on March 13. Medalists will be honored in a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
She said she was very proud of all of her students who submitted artwork for the contest.
“I think this is so validating for them. I am just very proud of them,” Collingham said.
The types of artwork submitted by Collingham’s classes consisted of paintings and photographs.
For more information about the Scholastic Awards, contact the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers at 212-343-7700 or info@artandwriting.org.
