Home > Around Town > Through the lens of youth

Through the lens of youth

2018 Scholastics Awards at Fort Wayne Museum of Art

By Rebecca Stockert

Fort Wayne Reader

2018-03-16

Each year, Fort Wayne Museum of Art exhibits the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards, highlighting some of the brightest and most promising young artists and writers in our area. 52 counties in Indiana and Ohio are represented by the program at FWMoA, the regional affiliate of this prestigious national organization.

Regional Gold Key, Silver Key, and honorable mentions are on exhibit in the galleries at FWMoA. This year’s work is exceptional and hosts a variety of prose, poetry, critical theory, painting, fashion design, sculpture, design, film, and more. The exhibition highlights the immense creativity, talent, and depth of intellect in our young people today. 820 visual arts pieces are on display, in addition to dozens of excerpts from writing award winners. Gold Key winners at the regional level are sent to NYC for national judging; we have 43 national medalists from our region this year.

Artwork by teens and young adults can be especially moving, as it gives viewers a glimpse into the coming-of-age stories of people growing up in our current time. It reflects our world through the lens of youth, sometimes raw, sometimes innocent, generally unabashed. There is a wide range of subjects, but as Alyssa Dumire, Director of Children's Education at FWMoA, points out, there is a high number of portraits and self-portraits: “Students are exploring themselves and who they are.”

My favorite piece from the show is a Gold Key winner, an ink drawing of a tenacious-looking woman in what could be a simple headscarf or a hijab. On her sunglasses, the words “My Choice” are reflected for the viewer. The piece comes from Canterbury High School student Sana Ghazali and does something powerfully postmodern: it gives the woman a voice, an identity, and the power of narration. In the piece, I speculate that Ghazali is taking control of her own identity and voice, as well.

Sydney Adams, from Homestead High School, won a Silver Medal of Distinction at the national level for her writing portfolio, a high honor. The award comes with a $1000 scholarship. She also won a national Silver Medal for her critical essay “Third Time's The Charm: Romantic Love and Their Eyes Were Watching God.” In the essay, Adams explores the idea of love through the main character, Jaine Crawford, of Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. Like any good critical thinker, Adams constructs a beautiful and fluent argument, but leaves enough room for the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Dumire points out that there are many works about family this year; in fact, Sabrina Nguyen’s personal essay “Heirloom,” about her Vietnamese identity and family, won a national Gold Medal and the American Voices Medal. The story is about a young girl (Nguyen) who grudgingly tries to learn how to spell her last name and, in turn, struggles with her ancestry, which manifests itself in the story as conflict with her father. An excerpt: “I didn’t want to know how to spell my stupid last name. No one in my school had the same last name, no one could pronounce it, and no one could spell it either. So why should I? Everyone had easier names like Smith, or Johnson, or Turner. Even Hernandez was easier to spell and pronounce than mine.”

Martin Mbugauh’s piece Dream Girl won a regional Gold Key as well as a national Silver Medal. The colored pencil drawing depicts a naturally-rendered young woman with hair that resembles a speckled, colorful universe. The rendering of the woman’s face and skin is akin to that of painter Lucian Freud (yes, grandson of Sigmund), one of the best figurative painters of the 20th century.

Dumire speaks of the artwork in the galleries with awe and respect. “The quality go up every year, it’s amazing. Somehow it just keeps getting better.” She points out that, for people who may have negative views of today’s youth, this exhibit is an example of the great things young people are doing. “The world is in good hands moving forward,” she says.

Scholastics Arts and Writing Awards, now in its 95th year, was created in 1923 by the Scholastic book company. The program was created in order to give creative students opportunities, much the same way that students who participate in sports have opportunities, through awards and scholarships. Core values of the organization include freedom of expression, blind adjudication, no censorship, and no limitations on subject matter. Hundreds of thousands of art and writing pieces are submitted across the nation to regional programs; 90,000 pieces were recognized by awards in regional programs this year. Of these, 2700 received National Medals (43 of them from our region).

The Scholastics Art and Writing Awards is on display at FWMoA through April 8th. To learn more about the exhibit and FWMoA, visit their website at www.fwmoa.org