Vienna Students Win Regional Art Awards

More than 400 middle and high school students from Fairfax County Public Schools won regional awards in the Scholastic Art Awards competition this year.

On Tuesday evening, Gold and Silver Key winners from Madison High School, Kilmer Middle School and Thoreau Middle School were recognized along with their peers at an awards ceremony at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College in the Ernst Community Cultural Center.

Madison High School’s Nicholas Soggin won the Assistant Superintendent’s Award for group two with Urban Canopy.

“What we’re here about tonight is not something that can be measured on a
standardized test. It’s not something you can bubble in. It’s something that is our
essence and the essence of our young people, something to celebrate with pride and
joy because we know that this is something that our community values and we want
to nurture it and continue to grow,” said Hunter Mill District Stuart D. Gibson, one of the speakers for the night.

The competition is a national program that seeks to recognize the achievements
of art students in grades seven through 12. The students’ teachers selected the
submitted works last Fall.  All of them were processed by the program from January
through March before they were reviewed by a panel of judges: a group of professional artists and art educators in the Washington, D.C. metro area that included photographers and illustrators, art gallery owners, artist and George Mason University School of Art professor of New Media Mark Cooley and more.

This year, judges viewed and scored selections based on photographs of the actual
artwork rather than viewing it in person.

“[Judges] look for creativity, a unique vision for the student as well as a higher skill
level than people would expect, so it’s a really interesting experience to see all that
really great work come into one place and you get to look at it as an art teacher and
see the signs of all these different schools,” said Aaron Stratten, Fine Arts Resource
Teacher with FCPS.

The panel reviewed more than 165,000 works; 1,677 of those entries came from
FCPS students. A total of 171 students won Gold Keys, 141 students won Silver Keys
and 136 were awarded Certificates of Merit for their work in one or more of the
following categories: drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, ceramics and glass
pieces, sculptures, digital art, film and animation, architecture, fashion, jewelry,
comic art, design, mixed media, and portfolios.

In addition to being recognized for the Scholastic Art Awards, students also received leadership team awards and scholarship awards. Several Gold Key Portfolio students won scholarship awards from the Arts Council of Fairfax County, Council for the Arts of Herndon/SAIC Technology and the Arts Program, Fairfax Art League, Lorton Arts Foundation, Springfield Art Guild and Vienna Arts Society.

All Gold Key winners are entered into the national Scholastic Art Awards
competition. Those winners are announced in April. A full list of regional winners,
their schools, and titles of their work can be found here.

Winners from Vienna schools include:

Kilmer Middle School
Lina Abd Rahim, Drawing, "Window View Graffiti" Raubacher (Silver Key)
Benjamin Hur,  Drawing,  untitled, Raubacher (Silver Key)
Htet Htet Wrigley, Mixed Media, "Family Culture Collage" Raubacher (Silver Key)

Thoreau Middle School
Ellen Blackburn, Sculpture, "Sir Blackfeather" Physioc (Silver Key)
Ellen Blackburn, "Drawing Welcome" Physioc (Gold Key)
Mimi Shang, Drawing "Colors of Sound" Physioc (Silver Key)
Mimi Shang, Painting, "On the Verge" Physioc (Certificate of Merit)

Madison High School
Eliza Browning, Digital, "Art Hide Away Home" Little (Silver Key)
Matt Campo, Drawing,  "Euphoria" April-Levey (Gold Key)
Fatimah Darab, Ceramics & Glass, Danrell Carter (Silver Key)
Kayla Gibson, Digital Art, "New York Idiosyncrasy" Little (Silver Key)
Sophie Goewey, Photography, "Blue Moon" Little (Gold Key)
Elizabeth Kim,Painting, "Childhood" April-Levey (Certificate of Merit)
Elizabeth Kim, Drawing, "Lying Around" April-Levey (Certificate of Merit)
Elizabeth Kim, Painting, "Reflection" April-Levey (Silver Key)
Mark Land, Photography, "Dimensional Reflections" Little (Silver Key)
Daniel Macdonald, Photo Portfolio, "Photo Portfolio"  Little (Silver Key)
Rachel McKeen, Digital Art, "Perfect Reality" Little (Gold Key)
Jihyun Park, Digital Art, "Asian calligraphy" Boyle (Certificate of Merit)
Nicholas Soggin, Photography, "The Urban Canopy" Little (Gold Key)
Grace Tuttle, Photo Portfolio, "Photo Portfolio" Little (Gold Key)