Advanced Placement (AP) Art teacher Tricia Erickson encouraged her class to submit a quality piece of their art through the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards website to honor their work. The students were required to make an account, pay a small fee, and submit a piece online in order to be eligible.
Anyone in high school could submit any form of artwork, the contest wasn’t limited to a traditional painting and sculpture. Although schools would be split into different regions, Northview being in Kendall College’s region.
Below you will find award winning students and their thoughts on the submissions.
Senior Lynn Fica won a silver key award for a piece in poetry after deciding to submit a poem because she had a lot of confidence within it and was very personal to her.
“I always knew she was a gifted writer,” Erickson said. “But was unaware of just how talented she was until she submitted her writing to the Scholastic competition.”
Her poetry was titled The Rainbow in What You Can’t Change highlighting her battle with an unhealthy relationship causing damage to her mental health.
“I struggled through an unhealthy relationship and with my mental health from a very young age,” Fica said. “This poem was a collection of some experiences framed through colors.”
Although Fica won’t be implementing art as a career, she plans to continue to write poetry and draw after high school as a hobby.
“I think it’s important for everyone to work through those experiences [mental health and unhealthy relationships] in their own way- for me, that’s my poetry,” Fica said.
Senior Krina Baldwin won a Silver Key award in the sculpture category. Although Baldwin ran out of time and wasn’t able to finish the piece, she hoped for the best. The outcome was more than she could have expected, especially since it was an experimental project with plaster and drywall compound, something she really hasn’t worked with before.
“It feels good to get an award for something that I created,” Baldwin said. “I’m proud and passionate about it, especially because I had yet to complete it due to the time frame.”
Her artwork is called Relatively Strangers. Baldwin explained her project as being a commentary about how “we go out everyday seeing faces and pretending to know people but in reality they are strangers.”
The faces are all simplistic and could be anyone but no one is sure who. They eventually realize they are alone together, their own face being among them. The faces begin to blend together so no one can distinguish one another. Yet we categorize them and judge according to groups.
“She has some very deep and compelling meaning followed by excellent writing skills that have made her work even more engaging,” Erickson commented on Baldwin’s piece.
Baldwin plans to continue the series as well as pursuing art after she graduates.
“For some art means playing basketball, or learning the art of playing the cello,” Baldwin said. “For me it is literally creating art.”
Senior Hannah Vierheilig received an honorable mention for a piece in mixed media. This category describes the medium she used, different from paint, charcoal, or granite.
She submitted the piece since it was a part of a fabric self portrait series that she was working on for A.P Art.
Her fabric self portrait is titled Comatose because it describes what she feels when waking up.
“This year has been rough on everyone and it’s starting to feel like the days blend together,” Vierheilig said. “[Feeling like] Maybe this is all a dream and I’m in a coma.”
She was able to use it for an artist research assignment on Billie Zangewa, referencing one of her well known portraits, Midnight Aura.
Vierheilig plans to continue art after high school by going to Grand Rapids Community College to earn general credits before transferring to Kendall College of Art and Design to focus more on fashion and sewing.
“Her love for fashion and fabric continues to surprise me with how much she has grown in her technical knowledge of sewing,” Erickson said. “I can’t wait to see where it takes her after graduation.”
Senior Lizzie Hackett won two awards, an honorable mention for a painting and a silver key award for a drawing.
“Two of her pieces selected were very different and yet both were very strong,” Erickson said.
Hackett used a material called gouache to create the painting that was inspired by the style of Tamara De Lempicka and made a painting out of it.
“I’ve always been more into realism, I wanted to find an artist that could break me from that,” Hackett said. “She is a very feminist artist for her time which is why I chose to study her.”
She titled the painting Self Portrait and her drawing Hidden Beach.
The pen and ink drawing represents a beach in different time periods to show the rising water levels of Lake Michigan. Hackett was inspired by a beach she visits annually and wanted to represent the different periods in her life.
“I have always gone there for the rocks, but every year I go, there are fewer and fewer rocks due to the rising water levels,” Hackett said.
Although Hackett is talented enough to easily jump from one medium to another she plans to continue art after high school, but not professionally.
“Each young lady has done an incredible job this year,” Erickson said. “Despite the many unusual hurdles Covid has thrown at them.”
