Photo Courtesy of Writopia Lab. Scholastic Awards alum Angelica Modabber with Writopia Lab founder Rebecca Wallace-Segall (left) and Writopia Lab instructor Danielle Sheeler (right) at the induction of the inaugural NYC Literary Honors.

Guest post by Alliance staffer Lisa Feder-Feitel

It’s rare to say “we knew you when” about someone who’s just 17, but Brooklyn-born writer Angelica Modabber has been submitting writing to the Scholastic Awards and earning accolades since middle school!

Therefore, it was not a surprise but a lovely honor to gather under a tent outside Gracie Mansion last month to see Angelica inducted in the inaugural class of the NYC Literary Honors. Stellar city scribes from Robert Caro (author of The Power Broker and LBJ biographies) to award-winning young adult author Walter Dean Myers were called to the stage to read and receive glittering statuettes. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg served as emcee, and perhaps because the event took place on “Poem in Your Pocket Day,” he read this rhyming tribute to one of the honorees: “I think that I shall never know, a poet as fine as Marie Ponsot!”

Angelica, who will attend Barnard College this fall, was the sole student to receive this newly-minted honor; she writes for both her online high school newspaper (of which she is the editor) and blogs for the New York Daily News.

As a 13-year-old 8th grader at the IS 245 Computer School, Angelica earned her first Scholastic Writing Award—a Gold Key. She applied for an ASAP (Alliance Summer Arts Program) Award, and was one of just 16 students nationwide to receive one! At the time, she said: “This grant has caused me to create some lofty goals for myself: it has taught me that my objectives and ambitions are not simply ideals that I want to reach, but ideals that I could reach.”

Her summer scholarship allowed her to attend Writopia Lab to further develop her abilities—and she remains at Writopia Lab today. In fact, one of her plays, A Step Outside, will be featured on May 18 at Writopia’s 2012 Worldwide Plays Festival. We wish her continued success and give her this shout-out from the Alliance: keep on reaching!

Batrek Yassa. The Unwavering Son. Grade 12, Age 17. 2012 Gold Medal, Art Portfolio.

In this segment of our Eyes on the Prize series, we would like to introduce you to another pair of 2012 Portfolio Gold winners: Batrek Yassa and Leah Lierz:

Batrek, 17, is an artist and a senior at Jersey City Arts High School Program in Jersey City, NJ. Art has served as a form of comfort during a difficult time in his life:

I had tasted, during the fall of my fourteenth birthday, a bitter fruit. Barren in taste, sharp in texture; it pressed on the buds of my tongue and scraped the walls of my throat as it followed gravity’s downward pull, anchoring itself to the base of my stomach. Sweet is the apple, sharp is the lime, but bitter is the fruit of fate, and it is the latter of three that had cursed me with its tang. Fourteen years had proved inadequate in ultimately arming me against the fates, for it was in my sophomore year of high school that my mother learned of the silent plague swelling within her. Diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, her muscles, which had once throbbed with vigor, were now fated to wither, parched in the drought of pestilence.

Within me boiled a red-hot rage, and as I sat brooding over my misfortunes, I felt the fire of that rage crack the very surface of my skin. However when I sat with a pencil in hand and dragged its peak across the tooth of the paper, I thought of my mother’s fingers and how they were unable to willingly touch tips let alone grasp a pencil. It was at that moment that I felt the grace of silence take stead of my anger for I felt not the weight of my burdens, but the weight of the lines, which I had strewn across the page. I do not create art for myself, though I do enjoy the purging qualities of the artistic process; I do not create art for my audience, though I do enjoy the aspect of forcing them to confront their own humanity; I do not create art for college admissions, though I do enjoy acceptance and accept rejection also.  No, I create art because I refuse to accept my mother’s fate, for although her body has betrayed her, my hands never will, and with them I will mock the fates.

Leah, also 17, attends South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, SC. Writing is a way for her to understand the world when it becomes overwhelming:

I write because I love to do it. I love it when I’m able to put my feelings into words and I love it when other people can relate to something I’ve written. Nothing is more satisfying than knowing you’ve affected someone with something you’ve written—be it with humor or poignancy or anything else. Writing puts the world in my perspective. In this way, it makes it easier for me to understand things. There are a lot of reasons why I write, but it’s mostly because I don’t feel right when I don’t. Writing’s just something I have to do.

Here’s an excerpt from Leah Lierz’s personal memoir, Protection, part of her Award-winning writing portfolio.

My parents moved us to Georgia so they could teach at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center or, for short, FLETC (rhymes with Betsy). FLETC is to most every law enforcement agency what Quantico is to the FBI. Secret Service, ATF, Border Patrol, U.S. Marshals—FLETC trains them all. It’s like college for Feds. My parents first met there when they were both training to be ATF agents. They decided to return so they could teach new agents about warrants and how to properly raid a place without destroying evidence or getting shot. My father was a firearms expert there and my mother specialized in undercover work. Where we lived, there were only two viable occupations: FLETC or tourism. A study conducted by Georgia Tech identified FLETC as the largest employer in all of Glynn County. Parents, like mine, taught there. The center hired locals to participate in training exercises and scenarios. So basically what that meant was I resided in a town filled with cops. Everyone in my neighborhood worked in law enforcement. But an island teeming with Feds and their families never seemed that strange to me. It felt the same as anywhere else in the world. Just safer. Except according to my mother.

I wasn’t allowed to hang out with kids in my neighborhood. As I rode in the back of my mom’s massive Lincoln Navigator, I watched the other children playing in the streets or walking from one house to another. I begged my mom over and over again to let me play with them. But she said being outside without an adult was dangerous. I chalked up her nervousness to the things she had seen in her line of work, the worst-case scenarios. This was the woman who taught courses called “Safety and Survival,” “Undercover Work in Narcotics,” and “Self Defense” every day. In her eyes, she was the only one who could keep me and my sister unharmed. But now that I think about it, maybe she was.

On Job Shadowing Day at school, every kid had to go to work with a parent or another member of the community for the day, then write a report about it. At most schools, this would mean a variety of interesting jobs. Shane’s dad is a mechanic. Camille’s mom is a beautician. Things like that. But at Oglethorpe Point Elementary School, almost every kid ended up at FLETC that day.

By some stroke of luck, the day I had to shadow my parents coincided with Pepper Spray and Taser Day. To complete training, every FLETC student had to spray and be sprayed, Tase and be Tased, at least once. In the early afternoon, my 110 pound, 5’1 mother took her students and me out to a giant field surrounded by trees on all sides. I watched as, scattered across the field, pairs of grown men pepper-sprayed each other. Some sprayed with hesitation and some without mercy. I heard the cries and curses of men crackling in my ears. It was a battle. A few fell to their knees in the field. Others kept going, the pre-conceived and unspoken agreement to attack one another still intact. My mother told me to pass out the water bottles for the men, desperate to wash the pepper out of their eyes. “Don’t pay attention to the bad words. Oh, and help me pass out these Tasers,” she said, handing me one of the heavy boxes at her feet. “Just make sure they know you’re there. They can’t see really well, so they might smack you by accident if you aren’t loud enough.” I walked around handing the crying men their Tasers. I stomped my feet so they would hear me coming and not punch me in the face.

It seems strange to me now that my mother never seemed to be afraid of setting me in front of about fifty, panicky, adult men. Especially when she was scared of almost everything else in the world that I could’ve possibly come into contact with. A few years ago, though, she came to my school to tell the kids about her work. That’s when she said something that I had never heard before. Something that made me understand why she’s so protective. Apparently, when my sister and I were still very young, when we lived in Kansas, my mother did some undercover work. It was nothing out of the ordinary. She hung around with this guy and his buddies for while, collecting evidence, before she pulled together enough to arrest him on. After he was taken into custody, he told her that he had been suspecting her for a while. He said that one of his “colleagues” had been instructed to tail her and to kidnap her children if anything happened to him. My sister and I were too young to know anything was happening. A couple of my parents’ agent-friends picked us up from our house and took us to theirs. Other agents took up posts near our home to watch for the man’s friend. My mom, I suspect, was hysterical, but we didn’t get to see her. In the end, nothing came of it. The man was probably just bluffing. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have any effect on my mother. We moved to Georgia soon after. She began to draw my sister and me in closer and closer, to tell us about all the dangers of the world, to try to make sure nothing ever happened to us. But maybe she was right to do that. Because it never did.

Photo Credit: Iñigo Sesma. Taken at Harrison Love's Compressed Culture show at the Greenpoint Gallery on April 6, 2012.

The art world can be a very daunting place, especially if you’re in New York City. There are surprisingly few places in New York that provide opportunities for young artists to show their work. Even with the resources that are available, exhibiting anywhere in this big city is a hard earned privilege.

This was no different for artist and illustrator Harrison Love, who won a Scholastic Art & Writing Award in 2004. Looking for the right opportunity to exhibit his work without feeling the bite of a gallery’s commission or percentage was no easy task. After looking for a year, Harrison was starting to become discouraged by the long wait list and huge commission percentage of galleries around the city.

Then, in the winter of 2011, there was finally a sign of light at the end of the tunnel. From December 13 – 20, Harrison had his work exhibited in the annual open call for artists at The Greenpoint Gallery, an artist-run art and music venue in Brooklyn, NY. There were over 200 paintings in the show from over 30 participating artists. Amongst the staggering collection of artwork, Harrison’s work stood out and was selected to receive a first place prize, a working residency at the gallery, and a solo show in the spring of 2012.

Check out our interview with him as well as a slideshow of the opening night of his solo show below!

Congratulations on your first solo show in NYC! What was this experience like for you? “I’ve exhibited all over the world, mostly when I was traveling. I just seemed to always find a place for my work. But, when I came to New York, every door was barred and carefully guarded. I didn’t know where to turn. After a year, I finally caught my break at The Greenpoint Gallery and was floored by the response! I got lucky.”

How is exhibiting in New York different from elsewhere in the world? “It seems like most artists in the city start out exhibiting wherever they can, showing their work in group or salon shows at galleries that take a percentage from the sale of the work. This is the beginning of an uphill battle for young artists. In other parts of the country there are galleries and museums that are easier to access and more welcoming to young professionals. I think it is naïve to start an art career in New York and put all of your eggs in one basket. NYC is a very full and expensive basket.”

How has your show at The Greenpoint Gallery changed your work? “It is very rare for a young and emerging artist to have a solo show in NYC. It is almost like, now, everyone has seen what I am capable of and is eager to see what will come next. I have drawn the attention of the bigger collectors and galleries, and now, I think that I have more responsibility as an artist than I’ve ever had before.”

What advice would you give to young artists looking to get into the art scene in New York City? “Don’t ever be discouraged. Nothing ever works out the way we fantasize. Your career will start slowly, and in a small way. But it will grow as long as you keep learning from each experience and from the other artists you will come in contact with in the process.”

To learn more about Harrison Love, visit: www.harrisonlove.com

You can also see his current project and support it online at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hlove/pahasqa-nan-the-hidden-way

Photo Credit: The Adroit Journal. Samantha Marcus, Turn to Clear Vision. Grade 11, New Canaan, CT.

Hi! My name is Peter LaBerge. I am a seventeen-year-old high school student born and raised in Connecticut. This year, I received a Gold Medal in Poetry and a Silver Medal in Flash Fiction from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. I also received the 2012 Elizabeth Bishop Prize in Verse as well as the 2011 Renee Duke Youth Award from Poets for Human Rights.

In November 2010, I founded The Adroit Journal, a literary magazine for all ages with a special leaning towards the work of young writers and global human rights issues. The journal has claimed over 1,300 submissions from writers and artists across the creative spectrum—from college students in New York City to retired farmers living on the Spanish coast. My staff, originally comprised of just myself, has expanded exponentially in conjunction with the rising popularity of the journal. A collection of 40 high school and college students currently work with me to evaluate submissions.  From Boston to Bangalore; Los Angeles to Greece; Hawaii to Hong Kong; and Mauritius to Oklahoma City, the writers of the next generation have united under the roof of The Adroit Journal.

Thus, I am pleased to announce the 2012 Adroit Prizes in Fiction and Verse, two brand new prizes offered by the journal specifically for young writers under the age of 22.  In this way, we hope to accommodate almost all high school and college students, and we encourage them to send their work (a maximum of three poems submitted separately or one short work of fiction) to us for consideration. All submissions will also be considered for publication in our Summer 2012 issue. For more information on how to submit your work, please visit: http://adroit.submishmash.com/submit.

We strive to receive the absolute best work from emerging young writers in high school and college. Thus, the student with the best work of fiction or verse between the ages of 14 and 21 will be awarded with either The 2012 Adroit Prize in Verse or Fiction!

Results will be posted on our website in early June. The two winners will be offered spots on the journal’s editorial staff for the next reading period, which is this summer.  Runners-up and Honorable Mentions might also receive offers to join the staff at the discretion of the judges.

Chloe Honum, currently a PhD student and the Helen Devitt Jones Fellow at Texas Tech University, is the judge for the 2012 Adroit Prize in Verse. For more information, visit: http://www.chloehonum.com.

Kirk Nesset, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Allegheny College, and author of two books of short stories, a book of translations, a nonfiction study, and a book of poems, is the judge for the 2012 Adroit Prize in Fiction. For more information, visit: http://kirknesset.com.

We look forward to receiving your work!

Our very own Justin Nissley (2001 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards winner) will have his first New York City solo show, Saints and Sinners, opening this Thursday, May 3 at Splashlight.

Until recently, Justin was a resident in the Alliance’s Atelier, our very first artists-in-residency program supported by the Esther B. Kahn Foundation. The program, which ran for three months, provided five up-and-coming artists (all past Scholastic Awards winners) with a storefront studio space donated by arts>Brookfield, along with a monthly stipend and general supplies, to create new works of art. You can learn more about Justin’s experience in the Atelier here: From the Atelier: Creating Art in a Public Space.

Saints and Sinners will feature 21 of Justin’s newest paintings, including pieces he created during his time in the Atelier, as well as some recently completed works that have never been shown before. We would be delighted if you will join us for the opening on May 3 from 7 – 8:30pm to celebrate this milestone in Justin’s career! The show will be up for a month, so be sure to check it out at some point if you can’t make it to the opening.

Splashlight Studio is located at One Hudson Square, 75 Varick Street, 3^rd Floor, New York, NY 10013. We look forward to seeing you there!

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Justin was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1983. In high school he was first exposed to the use of computer for making art. In the fall of 2001, he started his freshman year at Virginia Tech, and took his first oil painting course in the spring. He graduated with a BFA in studio art in 2005. Justin currently lives and works in New York City. Check out more of his work at: http://www.justinnissley.com.

Elizabeth Alexander. Song Sparrow. Grade 12, Age 17. 2012 Gold Medal, Drawing.

In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve been collecting poetry lines from all of you on Facebook and Twitter, which we’ll combine at the end of the month to create one long poem. We’ve also been featuring a Poem-A-Day on our Facebook page, which showcases poems from some of this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards winners. Today, however, is all about poems that you can take on the go – it’s Poem In Your Pocket Day! And, we’re celebrating it with Scholastic Award-winning poems that are 15 lines or less. Check ‘em out!

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The Invisible Poem
I once wrote a poem with invisible ink
So that when you saw it, you wouldn’t think it stinks
You see, I couldn’t think of anything to write
Nor any images to delight or excite
And so here is my sad little ditty:

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I hope you think it is pretty

– Sydney Pardo, Age 13, Irvine, CA
Magic Pen Kids
2012 Silver Medal

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The Dump
bugs crawling up the wall
the smell of a dead rodent in the air
dust falling where it may
pitch black
except for the small sunlight
escaping from behind the curtains
dirty clothes from years past
hang onto a side of the shelf
one can faintly hear the cry of help
from anything still alive
nose is inches away from the door
fill the lungs with as much
fresh air as one can get
hold your breath…
as you enter my brother’s room.

– Theresa Carpenter, Age 13, South Bend, IN
Saint Joseph Grade School
2012 Silver Medal

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Native Land
There is a place
Where you can buy moonshine and dragon’s teeth
In ebony boxes.
And rivers made of silver cut through the earth
Like a knife through stone.
And gold is for fools
While coal is for rich.
And you can love without fear
And happiness blooms like a flower.
This is my native land.

– Deryn Mierlak, Age 13, Upper Montclair, NJ
Mount Hebron Middle School
2012 Gold Medal

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Permanent Mosaic
I’ve been down in the downtown reality,
jiving to jazz, pouncing on every beat,
singing along with the smog,
with the pop of faraway
champagne bottles.

I am
living crucified to the billboard,
repeating, repeating
the lingo of the cats
on my right. A black mambo man inquires
whether this was a crime scene,
constricting, kneading, wringing,
the me out of me.

– Samantha Ardoin, Age 17, Exeter, NH
Phillips Exeter Academy
2012 American Voices Medal

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Just Looking Forward
Sensing is not feeling the drenched reptile’s skin on your hands

Or hearing the sinful hiss as you gaze at the tongue that dances in excitement

To sense is to possess the awareness of everything but not quite the ability to classify everything logically

Supernatural or not

The spiritual and paranormal creatures of other dimensions are the nightmares and daydreams beseeching to be challenged

To dream is not insane, but as an alternative it is just looking forward to your personal paradise after fatality and panic and obscurity have eroded from our system of matter

Beautiful is the sweet, diminutive flakes of snow

A glimpse of the upcoming, the reincarnation encrypted in a cycle of puzzles

My curious, insane psyche, engrossing and observing, marches on through the ashes, sensing

– Brandon Ayala, Age 12, Mechanicsburg, PA
Eagle View Middle School
2012 American Voices Medal

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Susan Castleman is the art supervisor for Pinellas County Schools. She has also been running the Pinellas Art Region of The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for over 15 years (thank you, Sue, for your dedication to the Awards program!). In the following interview, Susan shares her experience managing the Alliance’s Pinellas County Affiliate in St. Petersburg, Florida.

What’s been the most rewarding experience running a regional affiliate? The most rewarding part has been recognizing creative teens during our regional ceremony each year and seeing the winners’ faces. I also enjoy hearing parents, teachers, and others who attend the ceremony reflect on the time that they received a Gold Key, Silver Key, or Honorable Mention when they were in high school and how important it was to them.

And the most challenging? The challenges are finding good jurors and making sure that the judging process is valid and sound.

How do you choose the jurors you work with? I look for local artists (especially those who have won a Scholastic Art & Writing Award in the past), teachers whose students have participated in the Scholastic Awards competition, art supervisors and teachers from other counties, and faculty from art colleges and institutions. I always incorporate a few artists who have judged for us in the past.

What’s the best/strangest/most unique piece of artwork that you recall seeing during the judging process? In 1999, I bought the Scholastic Award winning artwork of LaMont Russ, a student at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School. Lamont won an American Visions Medal in 1999 and was featured in Scholastic Art Magazine that same year. I still have his original Award-winning piece hanging in my office. Lamont is now producing artwork for television, web, and theater. Some of his major clients include Cartoon Network, FX Networks, and MTV (go, Lamont!).

Tell us about the history of the Pinellas Art Region. Burdines, a former leading department store chain in Florida that has now merged with Macy’s, used to be the home of the Alliance’s Pinellas County, Florida regional affiliate. When Burdines was no longer able to support the program, Marshall Rousseau, the store manager then, along with Scholastic Awards alumnus Christopher Still, reached out to Suncoasters, a civic organization that donates time and resources to produce events that celebrate the City of St. Petersburg, in hopes of saving the affiliate. Their efforts were successful, and for the last fifteen years, I have been administering the Pinellas Art Region after its rebirth.

Can you share a surprising fact about you, your organization or your region that readers might not know? Until recently, our awards ceremony and exhibition was located at the Dali Museum, where former Burdines store manager Marshall Rousseau was the Executive Director. They have now moved to Pinellas County Center for the Arts, an art magnet school where we show all of the regional winning artwork and hold a ceremony in the school’s 800-seat theater. The teachers of award-winning students are also honored, and their pictures and names are displayed on a big projector in the theater along with the winning pieces. The students call it “The Academy Awards of the Visual Arts”!

How would you describe the program’s impact on the local community? Significant! St. Petersburg has a very strong arts community. We are home to the Dali museum, which houses the largest collection outside Europe of works by artist Salvador Dalí. We also have the Chihuly Collection, the Morean Arts Center for Clay (the largest pottery in the Southeast), the Museum of Fine Arts, and many more! Everyone sees the impact that arts education has on our society and our students. There has been a continual increase in the number of entries and award winners as well as an increased interest in the Scholastic Awards program from the art and political communities. We have a great partner in Suncoasters – one of the Chair’s of the organization even hosted a VIP Ceremony for potential funders to preview the regional winning works prior to the actual ceremony.

It has been a great year for the Pinellas Art Region and I hope that the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program continues in this area for many years to come.

Felipe Di Poi. Portrait of My Mother. Grade 12. 2012 Gold Medal, Art Portfolio.

Meet 2012 Portfolio Gold winners Felipe Di Poi and Haeyeon Cho of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards:

Felipe, 18, is an aspiring artist and a senior at Conard High School in West Hartford, CT. He likes to work in a variety of mediums including graphic design, comic art, film, and painting.

“The only way”: Art to me is the substance of experience. Along with the sciences, art is the only way that human beings have of manipulating their environment and understanding their surroundings. For me, art is the only way, other than real human interaction, of feeling happiness, sadness, exhilaration, fear, etc.

Haeyeon, 17, attends Milton Academy in Milton, MA. She is both a writer and an artist. Haeyeon won a Portfolio Gold Medal for writing, but she also has an aptitude for drawing and painting.

“My hair-lifting need to write”: If my house were to set on fire, the one thing I would run out with is this portfolio. It is not to say that this collection of poems and scrawls has a sentimental value (it does not), but I see my writing as a record of myself—my observations, my reflections, my everything—that I must cherish forever. Perhaps it makes most sense for me to run out with my passport if my dormitory were to catch on fire. But I doubt I can ever escape from my tendency to find inspiration in almost anything, my inherent desire to observe and understand and change people by the core, my hair-lifting need to write. Every language serves to weave people together through the emotion it provokes.

Buoy

By Haeyeon Cho (2012 Gold Medal, Writing Portfolio)

Aaron was watching his father sleep when a bird swept in from the window. His father turned in his bed, but the sound of the sheets was muffled by the twitching of the black feathers as the creature settled onto the water pipe. Aaron was observing the neck of the bird turn when Mark muttered, “You are a little late.”

Aaron apologized.

“Or early now, I guess. The sun woke me up.” Mark motioned his son to prop up the bed. Aaron arched his body over the old man and turned the handle counterclockwise until the bed sat up at a right angle. “Was there an emergency?” Mark asked.

“Sort of,” Aaron said. A woman had fallen into a lake.

Mark smiled. “Well, you can tell me all about it while I take my bath.” Aaron closed the window and flicked on the television. He went to the bathroom and squat by the tap while his hand cut through the column of hot water. Through the sound of the water Aaron thought he heard his father humming to the national anthem.

“Look,” Mark said, pointing at the screen. Aaron returned to his father’s bed. “It’s the lake. That was years ago, wasn’t it? When we drove south for four hours for some dirty water because your mother got ideas in her head from a sailing magazine?”

“The boat was fun.”

“We shouldn’t have let you drive, Aaron, you almost flipped us over. But you and your sister had a hard time getting off in the end, didn’t you?”

Aaron answered yes.

“And your mother—where was she?”

“She was sitting next to you.”

“No, she was by the bank. I remember she was standing on that grass, waving her arms like crazy. It was so windy, she was scared.” Mark paused. “When did she say that she’d visit?”

“Tomorrow,” Aaron answered. Mark turned back to the television. The weight seemed to be leaving his body as his face dissolved into a blank stare. Aaron looked up to check on the bird. The creature sat crumbled in the corner of the ceiling, flinching.

“What are you looking at?” Mark asked. Mark never liked birds, detested their shrieks and red-eyed glares. Aaron decided to keep the bird to himself. He swiveled his father around like a niece in a sundress and carried the hairless body in both arms to the bathroom.

Both men looked away as Aaron unbuttoned Mark’s pajamas and slid the garment down his father’s back. Leg by leg he pulled down the sweat-stained bottoms. Neither of them spoke. Holding his breath, Aaron stood still with Mark’s arms around his shoulders as Mark dipped his knees into the water. For a moment, Aaron thought they were dancing.

“Look at me, I’m a peeled potato,” Mark said, looking at his bare torso. He was chuckling. “I thought it was the disease, but I realized that there is no problem. It’s the age.”

“There really is no problem.” Aaron said softly.

“Really? Ha, look at your hairline, Aaron. I thought it was the recession, but you’re aging, too, just like me.” Aaron watched Mark’s narrow feet swell in the water. “I remember you as a baby. Right after you were born, I was pretty sure you weren’t my child. Your mother and I both had this thick, black horsetail hair, and we thought you’d come out looking like Elvis.” He paused. “You know, that day your mother and I fought so much I wished her dead. But we never fought ever again. I loved her too much. Even when Cecilia came out with hair like yours, I said nothing.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the balls of his hands down his cheeks that were sunken and bruised as his dented buttocks. “We should go back to the lake sometime,” he muttered.

“When the water’s not too cold.”

“We can get that small boat again. Just you, me, your mother and your sister. Soon it’ll be warm enough so you can teach your mother how to swim.”

“Just you, me, and Cecilia.”

“I can steer the boat this time. I would let you, but remember the last time we went there, when your mother was on the bank waving her arms like crazy, and you couldn’t stop—”

“You, me, and Cecilia is enough,” Aaron said. He rested his head on the wall.

“Aaron, it’s not embarrassing that you’re bad at driving.” Mark smiled.

Aaron wrapped his hands around his face like a cornhusk. “Mom can’t be there,” he said.

“I mean, look at you. You’re going to be a doctor. That’s enough.”

“I never drove that boat. You didn’t let me.”

“Why don’t you meet some of Cecilia’s friends?”

“You never let me drive. It was an accident, dad. Mom didn’t know how to swim.”

Silence hit the water. Mark slowly lifted his chin, letting his ears sink and his toes rise to slit open the surface of the bath water. His fingers let go of the tub and he swelled along the waves like a buoy. Aaron left the bathroom to lie down on the crinkled sheets. He found the bird hunched over on the water pipe. Aaron never liked birds, either. On the day when the wind knocked the ribcage out of his father’s boat and his mother sank like an oilcloth, a field of blackbirds had scattered into the sky like his mother’s hair when her body was returned home.

The creature’s eyes met Aaron’s, and the bird stretched, unfolding its limbs as if it had woken up from a dream. Aaron watched as the bird tiptoed along the concrete pipe and plopped onto the windowsill. He looked at his watch. It was time, and like the spark of a television flicked on, Aaron sensed Mark’s eyelids opening.

“Aaron, is that you?” asked Mark.

Aaron answered yes.

“What time is it?”

He told his father the time.

“You’re late. An emergency?”

“Yes. An old man drowned,” Aaron said, as he watched the bird spring from its feet and fly out the window.

Chic and multitalented fashion designer and photographer Esther Boller has won Scholastic Awards the past four years in a row, including a Gold Medal for her gorgeous Masking Tape Dress earlier this year (shown above). Her dress caught the attention of BurdaStyle, which did a wonderful feature on her. Check out the interview below.

We are so excited to chat with designer, artist, and long-time BurdaStyle member Esther Boller (aka: Melonhead), who has recently won a National Gold Medal in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for her Masking Tape Dress – an amazing creation made entirely out of masking tape!

First of all, congratulations on winning the award. Thank you!

What gave you the idea for the dress? About a month before I started working on the dress my mom and I took a train into downtown Chicago for a visit. I was blown away by all the beautiful architecture everywhere I looked. When I got home, I went online and researched different architectural buildings. I loved the way some architects played with circular movement in the creation of their buildings. I wanted to transfer that same style of circular motion into my dress. Another source of inspiration for the dress came from the chrysalis of a butterfly. I thought that all of the overlapping layers created a really beautiful effect, and I wanted to carry that idea into my design along with the idea of playing with circular motion.

How did you decide to use masking tape? Every year for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, I try to come up with a new medium of material to work with, and right from the start I knew that I wanted to work with masking tape. I thought about using toilet paper, but it didn’t really work for what I wanted to do with volume. I figured masking tape would work the best for creating the layers in the dress.

Beyond being a work of art, the dress looks wearable? Yes, the dress is completely wearable. It has a zipper sewn into the back so you can take it on and off. I finished the dress literally the night before the regional deadline, so I didn’t have time to try it on. I was thinking of wearing it to prom, but those plans have changed. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to try it on though.

You must be thrilled at winning the Gold Medal and that the dress will be on display. But how on earth is it going to get to New York City? Haha! The first words that came out of my mouth when I found out that it won were, “How in the world am I going to ship it there?!” The Fort Wayne Museum of Art has been really helpful. They came up with an idea of replacing the mannequin with a foam bodice and then running a pole through that bodice. The pole is then screwed to a wooden shipping crate.  That way the dress would be suspended in the crate and it wouldn’t bounce around as much. Then they figured that as long as we stuffed the skirt full of newspaper or something it would help with keeping its shape during the transportation. But the dress was still sticky in-between each layer of masking tape running up the skirt and bodice. So last week I was at the museum brushing each individual layer of masking tape down with baby powder, hoping to lessen the stickiness. It got everywhere, but it worked really well!  As far as I know, all has worked out and it should arrive in New York in one piece… And smelling like baby powder. Haha.

You are only 17 and already so talented. When did you start sewing? I started sewing in the 7th grade.  My mom learned to sew when she was younger, so she taught me how to sew from a pattern. The first project that I ever made was the most hideous pair of yellow, plaid pants that one would ever see (I still wore them everywhere though).  But after I made them, there was something about sewing that I just clicked and I started sewing more and more. I would go to the library and basically check out their entire section on sewing. I read every book that I could on the subject. I watched a ton of YouTube tutorials on sewing (that’s where I found a link to BurdaStyle). Pretty soon I was sewing something new every day. After a while I was absolutely in love with it and I knew that I wanted to pursue it as a career.

Where do you get your inspiration? I’m inspired by anything and everything, but some of my biggest sources for inspirations are movies and books. I’ll fall in love with a certain character and I’ll think about what they would wear next. Sometimes I’ll think about what they would wear if they were living in a different place or era in time. Some of my favorite characters to think up designs for at the moment are Chuck from Pushing Daises and Violet from A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (which were my favorite books when I was younger).

What is next for you? Do you see yourself pursuing a career in fashion design? Well, I have one more year of high school left, but after that I hope to be accepted into a design school. There’s so much more that I want to learn when it comes to sewing. I want to earn my degree in fashion design and also get a minor in business. I hope to one day start up my own line of women’s clothing and keep doing what I love for the rest of my life, which is designing and making clothes.

Check out the full interview here. You can also view a slideshow of more designs by Esther.

Jessica Bonaventure. Parallel Universes. Grade 12, Age 17. 2011 American Visions Award, Mixed Media.

Here at Scholastic headquarters in SoHo (NY), we’re used to being around a lot of artwork. A lot. Each of the twelve floors in this building is adorned with hundreds of award-winning artworks that span all 89 years of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program.

As the keepers of this collection, we at the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers wanted to know what Scholastic employees really wanted to see in the spaces and halls that they work in and pass by every day. So, we developed Scholastic Curates as a way to find out.

From March 19-23, 30 small-scale reproductions of artwork by Scholastic Award winners from 2011 hung in Scholastic’s Greenhouse cafeteria. Anyone who visited could view the collection of artwork and vote for their favorite piece by placing a sticker on an adjacent voting sheet. At the end of the week, the pieces with the most votes were exhibited. Beautifully simple!

The piece that Scholastic employees voted to the top was a mixed media painting called Parallel Universes by 17-year-old Jessica Bonaventure from Middlebury, CT. It depicts a crowded subway car where commuters are tethered from above by an unidentified puppet master. Is it a theme we can all relate to? Or is it what we observe in our environment that makes this piece resonate? Perhaps, it feels that only an outside force could convince sleepy commuters into crowded trains during the wee hours of the morning. Whatever the reason, Jessica’s artwork got our attention and we will enjoy it for many months.

Here are the top 5 pieces, all on view at the Greenhouse:

#1 – Parallel Universes by Jessica Bonaventure
#2 – Bullies by Mellisa Stepp
#3 – Sea Ranch by Anja Roy
#4 – In the Shadows by Maegan Lambright
#5 – Caged by Nicole Leight

Interested in picking your favorite? Vote here.