Category:

Scholastic 2016

6/6/2016

This is the fourth time I have had the pleasure to experience the National Scholastic Awards with a student.

Each time is different. Each time is inspiring. I am so thankful for the opportunity these awards have given to my students and me; I am also excited about what next year might bring and how my students may raise to the challenge to keep our three-year winning streak going.

My favorite moment from the event was listening to the words of Tim Gunn, who encouraged us to embrace our fear - he said that if we are feeling fearful of failure, it means we are probably doing something important; harness that energy to complete each new idea with a freshness that pushes the work forward.

Congratulations again to our Gold Medalist, Cam Shuelke, who attended the awards, as well as Silver Medalist, Ethan Pipe. Their hard work and creativity will keep inspiring students for years to come!

If you would like more information about these awards, check out the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards website and our local Regional Affiliate.

Images from the show and a video of the celebration at Carnegie are below.

Here is Cam next to his Gold Medal winning piece of jewelry, Modular Necklace. This work will now be a part of the Art. Write. Now. Tour and travel the US to various cities and venues.

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2016 National Medalists

3/15/2016

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ModernHome2 by Ethan Pipe, National Silver Medal

Modular Necklace by Cam Schuelke, National Gold Medal

BCWMS had two National Scholastic Medalists for this year's competition. Nearly 320,000 works of art and writing were submitted this year and only the top 1% earned this acclaim at the national level.

Cam has been invited to be a part of the National Awards Celebration and Ceremony at Carnegie Hall in NYC June 1st-2nd and his work will be a part of a two year Art and Writing exhibition that will travel the country.

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2016 WCM Regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

3/6/2016

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My favorite part of programs like this is seeing parents celebrate the creative accomplishments of their children.

Fountain Street Church was packed this year as they hosted the awards program again this year.

It was a great Saturday as I watched some of the most creative Michigan teens be recognized for their work in the 2016 West Central Michigan Regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. It was one of the most packed ceremonies I can remember as the speakers took a moment and framed the accomplishment for those in attendance.

Dr. Schuitema gave great perspective on how taking creative risks and sharing your work takes courage.

The featured speaker, Dr. Adam Schuitema (Associate Professor of English at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University), helped frame the accomplishment for this year's winners as he invoked the names of Scholastic alumni like Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, Lena Dunham, Robert Redford, Andy Warhol, and more. He praised students for taking the risk in sharing their work and competing in this prestigious competition which has a 94 year tradition. In his talk to students, Dr. Schuitema made note of the courage creativity takes and how much hope it brings to all of us to see these students share their talents as they look to find new solutions for the future.

In addition, he shared the statistics from this year's Awards:

1,667 individual Art entries received
428 individual Writing entries received
45 Art portfolios received
22 Writing portfolios received

859 Awards granted:
5 American Vision
5 American Voices
179 Gold Key
262 Silver Key
408 Honorable Mention

In addition to sharing the names of notable alumni, this year's award ceremony also had a former Scholastic Writing winner, Ken Burns, share encouragement and words of wisdom via video. He ended his video welcoming this year's winners into the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards family.

It was inspiring to hear Ken Burns explain how winning the Scholastic Award as a student positively impacted him and his future.

It was exciting to see some of the winning work be displayed as winners were announced and to know that of them, many are from BCPS. Not all of our students were able to attend the ceremony, but here are some images from those that were. It was especially fun to see my past students Emma McCloud, Tommy Sadler, Krista Bartholomy, and Kennedy VanLeirop continue their Scholastic success and win as high school students.

This is always a special day for me and my students. It is a time to celebrate accomplishments and recognize the hard work it took to earn their awards. It is also a great time to view the accomplishments of others and be inspired to think about what is possible next.

I had such a great time talking with parents and meeting extended family members as we admired the creative courage so many students shared for this year's awards.

Some of our 7-12th grade winners pose as a group during the reception at KCAD.

I am very excited to find out if any of our Gold Key winners have National Medals in their future when we find out those results on March 15! Until then we will be still smiling from the great accomplishment achieved this year and may even start planning for next.

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Happy Scholastics!

1/8/2016

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Today was a day students have been working towards since the start of school (and some even earlier than that). We found out whose work was recognized for the West Central Michigan Regional Scholastic Art Awards.

Our Byron Center 7-12th grade Visual Arts program had a stellar year, breaking our previous record of award-winning works! You can see the full list of winners here.

The following are pieces from my 7-12th grade students that will be honored at the celebration March 5th. The thing that makes me most proud of these works is that all were imagined, designed, and executed by my students through their hard work and willingness to push further with materials and ideas.

I am so thankful to the TAB community for encouraging this type of teaching in all classrooms. I feel so fortunate to have finally adapted a more open model in my classroom so that works like the ones below could come to life.

American Vision Nominee

Ana Ha, 8th grade: A Fading Dream

Gold Keys

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Torn Between Light & Dark

Leah Fan, 8th grade: Perfect Imperfections

Riley DeJong, Jewel Richardson, Abby Boyle, and Abbie Clum
What is Beauty?

Sarah Koenes, 8th grade: Penelope & Piccolo

Denver Lahay, 8th grade: My Fire

Kasey Lee, 8th grade: Key to Identity

Ethan Pipe, 8th grade: ModernHome

Ethan Pipe, 8th grade: ModernHome2

Jewel Richardson and Gabby Vitali
The Little Crayon

Jewel Richardson, 8th grade: Fixing the Good Things (artist trading cards)

Cameron Schulke, 8th grade: Modular Necklace

Corrinne Wayman; 7th grade: Duct Tape Dress

Silver Keys

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Rebirth

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Hollan Horizon

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Payful

Caiden Bazuin, 8th grade: On a rainy day

Lily Bloye, 8th grade: Bouquet Bandit

Ana Ha, 8th grade: The Special Necklace

Lexi Brummel, Cameron Rabideau, Austin VanderMarkt, and Alexis Wierenga
Be the Sun

Gracie Keiser, 8th grade: The Koi Watcher

Sarah Koenes, 8th grade: Peace

Clay Lake, 7th grade: Greenscale

Ethan Pipe, 8th grade: Surreal Mountain Scape

Ethan Pipe, 8th grade: Skyscraper1

Jewel Richardson, 8th grade: We Can Be Persuasive

Gabby Vitali, 8th grade: One Tenth

Alexis Wierenga; 8th grade: Sitting on Clouds

Honorable Mention

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Happy Home

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Photography

Jason Kent, 12th grade: Work

Dalton VanderArk, 9th grade: Throwing Color

Maddison Denning, 7th grade: The Springs Of Life

Jessica DeRidder, Katie Hauch, and Sarah Koenes
What if?

Cheyenne Jensen, 8th grade: The Sapling Saviors

Gracie Keiser, 8th grade: Puppy Paradise

Sarah Koenes, 8th grade: Fire

Denver Lahay, 8th grade: Choose to be Good

Gwenneth Paulson, 8th grade: Rust

Gwenneth Paulson, 8th grade: Perspective

Colton Summers, 7th grade: 3D Tree House

All Gold Key winning works will now move onto the next phase at the national level and we will be notified of outcomes by early Spring.

If you have any students awarded, please share the work and celebrate the success with us! This is a great competition with an over 90 years of honoring students' creative ideas and skills in the classroom!

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Something New

1/7/2016

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I am not going to sugar-coat it; this first week back from break has been rough. Each morning has been a little harder than the one before to get out of bed and be energized for school. Luckily I have some of the best students out there to help me bear with the transition back to limited bathroom breaks and the rush that occurs as we tie things up before the end of the term.

Because we only have two more weeks before exams, it is important to finish up loose ends and get one last project in there before we say our final goodbyes. Here is what we have been working on this week and some thoughts on the eve before the announcement of West Central Michigan Scholastic Awards:

Empty Bowls

I used Holiday Break as a perfect opportunity to catch up on firing our bowls that were glazed in preparation for our annual Empty Bowls event. This year will mark the 9th year of the event and we are planning to try some new things in hopes to keep it fresh and the community involved. What stays the same is how much students love the fact we use clay on the first day of class to make these pieces and how impressed I am with their ability to see the connection art can have to impacting others in a positive way. Several students already brought in donations so they could claim their bowl!

Here are a few of the finished bowls and thoughts from my students on the experience. You can see the full gallery here.

Clara: Empty Bowls is a very nice project that is helping our community. In empty bowls, people donate canned foods to receive a bowl and the food is later donated. Not only does this give people pieces of art made by students it also gives the hungry food.

Mwansa: his was a good experience making the bowls because it made me think about how some people don't know when their next meal will come, and It makes me want to do something nice for the community. One way we are helping with empty bowls is, by doing this people donate money to the foundation, and they community enjoys a good time with the food and music.

Alexis: In my art piece, I made a bowl that says be happy on the inside, and has a rainbow city on the outside of the bowl. This art piece is more than just a bowl. This bowl will be one of many that will be used for the less fortunate and people who don't know where their next meal will come from. These bowls will help our community by bringing everyone together in a community and to help the needy. This is the reason we make the bowls. Its to help our community.

Porter: This empty bowls brings the community together because the bowls are given away if you bring a thing of canned food. Then after all of the canned food is collected they donate them to a food bank. The bowls that the students created give other kids in need that aren't fortunate. We are helping our community and bringing our society by giving to kids that aren't as fortunate. Empty bowls is a create way to donate goods, and bring our community together

Something Old

Toby started sketching out ideas on how to reimagine his landscape from earlier this year before beginning his final project.

For our final project of the semester, students have been given the theme "Something Old, Something New." This theme challenges them to look through their Artsonia portfolio (some students could go back to works from 1st grade) and select a work to reimagine.

Students were asked to think about how they might use a different media to interpret the previous work, or switch up the composition, or even use a similar media, but focus on showing new skills and growth in the way it is used.

Before getting to work on their sketches, students also viewed the work by Takashi Murakami. He is influenced by the past and present and discusses this merging of ideas in this video, which students viewed.

Students then worked in their sketchbooks, conferenced with each other, and then presented ideas to me before finally diving into their final works. We will be finishing up this project next week before we move onto Final Exam prep, but here are some snapshots of work in progress so far:

Scholastic Thoughts

Tomorrow Kendall College of Art and Design will post the outcome of this year's West Central Michigan Regional Scholastic Awards. Regardless of what happens, this is the most excited I have been for a result since I started entering student work in 2008. I am super proud of our kids either way and look forward to sharing the news of the results tomorrow. If you are antsy, like me, and do not want to wait for a post, you can always go here at noon tomorrow and see for yourself!

I want to wish all of my Art Teacher friends much luck as they await their students' results, too! If your students are recognized this year, please do share the results!

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Scholastic Submission Preview

12/12/2015

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The Scholastic Art Awards are right around the corner, with submissions due early next week. BCPS students have participated in this annual competition since 2008. Each year, I wonder how students will manage to top the year prior, especially since last year was our most successful with the third most pieces recognized in our region and three of our students receiving medals at the national level.

I think our chances of topping the success from last year is as good as it could ever be, though. Students have stepped up to the challenge, creating some of the most innovative, evocative, and skillfully crafted works I have seen over my years of encouraging students to submit.

The following works are not all of the pieces we are submitting, but a sample of some of the great work that will represent BCPS when we compete in the 2016 Scholastic Art Awards!

This piece is part of a senior portfolio by one of my DE students from last springs photo class. I am excited about the innovative way this image was made and wish Jason much luck as he submits his series as well as other photographs for individual consideration at this year's competition.

This piece of fashion is designed by one of my students who does not have room for art in her schedule this year. Although as a freshman Anna is not in an art class, we communicated through email as she came up with concepts and developed this piece to submit in competition.

This mixed media piece by 8th grader Gracie is using rulers I saved from the trash with the hopes a brave student would turn them into something great. She used the time of her birth in this image as she explores ideas of time and transport.

7th grade after school art student, Maddie took up the challenge I gave to students early in the year when I said I would like to see some explore jewelry making. She created this work by first creating the circles and then winding them together.

This work was probably the most surprising submission as it was not supposed to be a piece of jewelry when 8th grader Cam started making it. It is through the power of "What if" that he took the leap into accidental jewelry designer and I am very interested to see how the judges respond.

This photograph is a result of good exploration and observation by Gwen, an 8th grade student. She and I worked through compositional elements and camera settings this semester and I am excited that she is pushing herself to take images like this one.

8th grade student, Jewel, worked with drawing, printmaking, and collage for this image that explored the banking industry. It will be interesting to see how it does in the mixed media category.

Ethan created multiple digital landscapes in photoshop this year for the competition. It will be exciting to see how this 8th grade student does.

Leah has been working on this sculpture since the beginning of the school year. It will be fun to see how her piece celebrating differences does in the sculpture category.

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2015 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

6/13/2015

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This past Thursday was the 92nd Annual Scholastic Awards celebrating young Artists and Writers from across the country. I had two National Medalists this year and was thrilled that one of them was able to attend the ceremony at Carnegie Hall! I was also able to attend due to funding from DonorsChoose. In addition to the ceremony, which featured special guest speakers Whoopi Goldberg, Chelsea Clinton, Tom Otterness, and David Lipski, we were able to spend a few days in NYC to tour museums and the city! Here is a highlight reel of the awards ceremony:

Anna and I had a chance to pose for one more photo after the celebration at Carnegie Hall!

I was also excited to see both of my students' works on display in the gallery at Parson's. It is still a little mind-boggling to think that I have student work in an NYC gallery that will also be going on a two-year tour. It was SO inspiring to see the work representing the best of the best our country has to offer and I am so excited to bring back the images from the show in hopes of inspiring my students and sparking new ideas!

One of the highlights of the event was seeing student work on display at the Parson's gallery.

This is the first time I have had student work on display in the National Show. They only display the Gold Medalist work and I was so proud to see both Anna and Jordan's pieces in the same space!

Another awesome moment from this trip was our time spent at the MET, Chelsea Market, and the High Line trail. Each offered a different view of the city and I am so thankful I will be able to take the inspiration from this event back to my classroom in hopes we will make it back here again next year with another winner! Thank you again to DonorsChoose and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for helping make this happen!

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And the Winners Are...

3/16/2015

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Been There, Done That - Photography by Jordan Cooper

The Necknib - Jewelry by Anna Pavlak

It is with great pride that I share our two winners from BCWMS for the 2015 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. This is the first year we have had multiple winners from our school and the first year that any medal has been GOLD, which both students earned!

If you would like to learn more about what it means to win, please check on this post from last year when we celebrated our Silver medalist, Makenzie Reid.

We will find out on March 30th if students are able to attend the event and then will begin the fast and furious fundraising it takes to get there. I am incredibly proud of this accomplishment and look forward to celebrating this success! This would not have been made possible without the strength of our Visual Arts team, support of Administration and the larger community, as well as the support of our Fine Arts Boosters who helped pay for the admission fees of this competition.

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Writing in Art

3/2/2015

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Maybe it is because I also earned my teaching certificate in English, or maybe it is because that is how I am wired, but I cannot imagine having Art without the writing that explores the intent of the artist. I also cannot image Art without the time and space to interpret and explore ideas other artists present.

Today in class students spent some time on their Artist of the Week entry. For this, they login to our classroom Scholastic Art Magazine and select an artist to discuss. They then use evidence from the artwork as well as the reading to support their thoughts about the work. This resource is thanks to the gift of generous donors who gave to our DonorsChoose request earlier this school year.

Here is an example of the type of responses students submit:

I was able to get another photo of the 2015 Scholastic Art Award winners today. Everyone was excited to get their certificates and celebrate in the success of each other.

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2015 Scholastic Art Awards

2/28/2015

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Today was an awesome day. I got to spend time celebrating the accomplishments of my students with their families and other talented teens from around the state of Michigan. I am so proud of this group of kids, who have raked in the most recognition in BCWMS history, and know their creative futures are bright as they take this honor and build many more great things upon it.

The part that brings me the most pride form this year's award-winning works is how little I had to do with their making. This may be a funny thing for me to admit, being that I am their teacher, but what I mean is all of the winning works were based around broad themes I gave to students in which they designed, planned, and executed works from their interpretation of that theme on their own. I may have assisted with feedback, demonstration of skill, and supplying both time and space to do it, but the creative ideas were solely theirs.

This would not have been possible without the support of the entire Visual Arts team at BCPS, including our Administrative team and Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters. I also have to give a major shout-out to my professional learning community of Art teachers from around the world on Twitter and Facebook that has encouraged me and my students with great feedback along the way.

Check out the highlights from this afternoon's ceremony:

Not all of my students could make it to today's ceremony, but here is a good representation of the 18 students involved in the 24 award-winning works from BCWMS.