One hallway in the high school is filled with young artists who want to express themselves creatively through artwork. Art students work endlessly to craft beautiful pieces in class. This year, they had an amazing opportunity to present their work.
Students from the Northview Art Department recently participated in the annual 2024 Congressional Art Competition. For each area of Michigan, a congressperson is encouraged to host an art contest which is open to all high school students who want to submit their artwork. The following Northview students participated in the competition: Joseph Bauer, Emma Butkevičius, Ava Caldiran, Mylie Krull, Liam Price, Faith Vandenberg, and Madelyn Zimmer.
This juried competition gives young artists the opportunity to have their art recognized by the community. Participating artists earned the honor of displaying their art at the Gerald R. Ford Museum. Northview art teacher Nathan Kukla feels this is a wonderful chance for students to be highlighted for something of which they are passionate.
“I think it’s an amazing opportunity, I try to encourage all of our artists to submit to any contest that they can,” Kukla said.
Junior art student Zimmer is filled with pride regarding her artwork getting acknowledged.
“I feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to share my art with the world,” Zimmer said. “It was a very rewarding experience to see that I could definitely go somewhere with everything I create.”
Out of the many participants, one artist stood out in particular. Junior art student Krull’s work was selected as the winning piece for Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District. Therefore, her piece will be displayed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. for the next year. Krull will even be receiving plane tickets, and with them she can visit her work at the capitol. Krull is incredibly grateful for her personal art receiving such recognition.
“I was definitely not expecting it [to win] ‘cause I just put my art piece in for fun,” Krull said. “So I’m really excited about it.”
Kukla believes this is a door-opening opportunity for Krull and her future prospects.
“It’s great ‘cause Mylie [Krull] can add this to her resume when she’s applying for colleges and schools and she can mention that she won these accolades,” Kukla said.
To Zimmer, Kukla was incredibly supportive of all the students throughout this journey. He made it possible for the artists to showcase their talents to the highest ability.
“He encouraged me to submit something into multiple competitions this year, and definitely pushed hard when it came to this one,” Zimmer said. “He’s very supportive and helped me choose one of my strongest pieces and hit the deadline.”
Validation and support can be a huge confidence booster, especially for the art community, and this contest promoted that. Kukla believes this is incredibly important for art students to experience.
“It’s one thing for me as a teacher to tell people that their art is good, it means a lot more when they get that outside affirmation from jurors and judges about their work,” Kukla said.
Krull is grateful she received this honor and opportunity to further her artistry.
“I think any artist should enter art into competitions even if you don’t win or get recognized, [there is] still people seeing your art,” Krull said.
