LIFE

Scholastic Art Awards teaches more than art education

Amanda Horn

On a sunny Saturday morning in March, the Nevada Museum of Art is filled with 400 junior high and high school students, accompanied by family, friends and teachers. The crowd's anxious exhalations thicken the air, hanging over the atrium with pointed anticipation. This day marks one of the staff's favorite annual events: the Scholastic Art Awards Ceremony, honoring Northern Nevada's most artistically-talented teens.

Since 1999, the Nevada Museum of Art, Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts, E. L. Wiegand Gallery has overseen the Northern Nevada regional visual arts component of this national competition. Junior high and high school students from Carson City and Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Pershing, Storey, Washoe, and White Pine counties submit artworks to be judged on originality, technical skill and the emergence of a personal vision. The Gold Key and American Visions Nominee-winning works are displayed in a joint exhibition between the museum and the Holland Project Gallery, Reno's all-ages cultural hub.

Abbey Butler poses with her American Visions Medal winning-ceramics sculpture, Equinox, in the Nevada Museum of Art Wayne and Miriam Prim Theater Lobby during the 2015 Scholastic Art Awards Ceremony, March 21, 2015.

Alisha Funkhouser is gallery and arts director at the Holland Project. She, along with Jacque Dawson, Nevada Museum of Art Nell J. Redfield school services manager — and Scholastic program manager —curated the exhibition of winners.

"The youth age group in Reno is super underserved," Funkhouser said. "This is typically a 21-and-over town, so there are not always a lot of opportunities for kids here."

Scholastic, she says, helps fill that opportunity gap. "It exposes students to artwork, and inspires them to make their own."

In addition to the students who submit for the competition, high school art classes take field trips to come view the exhibition. This exposure makes a lasting impact on impressionable minds. One such mind is Damonte Ranch High School senior Abbey Butler. Butler was one of five 2015 Scholastic Gold Key winners who received top honor: an American Visions nomination. Her stacked ceramic sculpture Equinox was sent to be judged at the national level, where a panel selected her work to receive an American Visions Medal. The piece will be on view in New York City alongside other national winning works from around the country. In June, Butler and her mother will travel to Carnegie Hall to be honored in person.

Hundreds of Northern Nevada junior high and high school students, accompanied by family, friends and teachers, fill the Nevada Museum of Art atrium during the 2015 Scholastic Art Awards on March 21.

Butler credits Damonte Ranch ceramics teacher Sonny Rosenberg for her success. Recognizing her talent, he encouraged her early on to pursue the medium. Rosenberg's ceramics class has an annual show at the Holland Project, and he mandates his AP students submit artwork to Scholastic. Butler has had the privilege of showing her work at Holland since her freshman year. This year, as an American Visions Nominee, she got the honor of showcasing her piece in the Nevada Museum of Art theater lobby.

"It's cool for bragging rights to have my work shown at the Nevada Museum of Art. It's pretty cool to see my work there," Butler said.

Beyond the bragging rights, Butler says Scholastic offers recognition for art students in a system that otherwise provides none.

Damonte Ranch High School senior Abbey Butler addresses the crowd during the 2015 Scholastic Art Awards, March 21, at the Nevada Museum of Art.

"It's good for art students to have something to strive for," said Butler. "For sports teams, they have games. It's cool to have [Scholastic] for art students so they can put their best out and get rewarded for it."

Rosenberg says in an educational system that gives little weight to visual arts, Scholastic Art Awards bears even more importance. Over the 18 years he's been teaching, Rosenberg has witnessed visual arts education, and opportunities for students who pursue such, continually slide downhill as standardized testing and rigid STEM curriculum take center stage. That, he says, hurts student development.

"Kids who do well at art become good problem solvers, on both mental and physical planes," Rosenberg said. "If we can't solve problems in the physical world, that makes life difficult."

Nevada Museum of Art Nell J. Redfield school services manager and Scholastic program manager Jacque Dawson stands with a group of students waiting to accept their awards during the 2015 Scholastic Art Awards, March 21 at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno.

He says students like Butler are learning more than art.

"Ceramics spans a few worlds," he said. "It takes applied science and engineering skills, too."

Jacque Dawson says it's teachers like Rosenberg who drive the Scholastic program.

"This would not happen without the teachers. The teachers are the heavy lifters," Dawson said.

Teacher support sends the message to students that what they do is important, a message often drowned out by the sharpening of No. 2 pencils used for filling Scantrons.

"It matters," Dawson said. "Scholastic tells them that."

Most of the students who participate in Scholastic will not go on to pursue art degrees. But they will be better at finding creative solutions to contemporary issues. They will make better innovators, more successful entrepreneurs. By inserting "A" into the STEM model, we make more well-rounded humans.

Amanda Horn is the director of communications for the Nevada Museum of Art. Email her at amanda.horn@nevadaart.org or follow her on Twitter at @tebohorn.