St. Joseph schools are shining a spotlight on the artistic achievements of their middle and high school students.
A total of 66 students have earned prestigious awards in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. High school art teacher Matt Culver tells us he’s excited and proud of his students and their accomplishments.
“We submit to our region, which is around 17 counties between Indiana and Michigan, and those get jurored down in South Bend at the South Bend Museum of Art,” Culver says. “If they earn gold, they have an opportunity for their work to move on to New York City where it will be displayed in Carnegie Hall if they do get a national award.”
Two students who were recognized, Cora Miller and Maggie Maxim, tell us it took a lot of hard work and time to put their artwork together.
Miller, a gold finalist, tells us her project, an animation, took several months to create that included sketches and combining multiple ideas.
“It was a multiple month long process of sketches and ideas and trying to like story write and stuff, which is something I’ve never done before,” Miller says. “It was pretty difficult but in the end it kind of felt like seeing all my hard work come together and it was worth it in the end.”
Maxim, who had two different pieces receive honorable mentions, used both drawing and animations to create something unique.
“One of them was a painting,” Maxim says. “It was a picture of a peanut butter jar and an intelligent and this other like food that I used to have when I was younger, and I used an impressionistic style to paint that using a butter knife. Then the other one that I did was a digital piece that was called. We had to make a comic using different characters that we had already created.”
Both ladies said it was the best feeling to get recognized on a national scale for their artwork. Miller says receiving the gold boosted her confidence even more.
“For me, it was like the best feeling ever winning a gold key after putting so much time and effort into the project that I made,” Miller says. “I think that it boosted my confidence a lot in art and kind of like made me realize that I do have potential.”
Winning students were awarded with the recognition last weekend. You can go check out the artwork now through April 13 at the South Bend Museum of Art.
You can check out Miller and Maxim’s artwork here.
