Above: Photos of the Pinellas Art Region’s 2012 Scholastic Awards Ceremony and Exhibition
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.
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. Read More
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. Read More
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.
A couple of weeks ago, we uncovered a gem in our archive – 1956 Scholastic Writing Award winner Joyce Carol Oates’s winning short story which was featured in Scholastic’s Literary Cavalcade magazine in 1957! Oates wrote A Dawn You’ll Never See during her senior year at Williamsville South High School in Williamsville, NY.
Brianna Robinson. I Can’t Go. Grade 12, Age 17. 2012 Gold Medal, Photography Portfolio.
Last week, we introduced you to two of our 2012 Portfolio Gold winners—photographer Leo Purman and writer Emma Goldberg. We shared their creative process and presented a sample of the incredible work that they produced. In continuation of our Eyes on the Prize series, we would like you to meet our next pair of portfolio winners: Brianna Robinson and Yan Zhang. Read More
