From Scholastic’s On Our Minds blog. By Anne Sparkman.

Sarah Devlin is a talented filmmaker from New Orleans who took home the Gold in the 2012 Scholastic Awards – and a $10,000 scholarship – for her portfolio of films. They range from music videos to documentaries, from English to French!

A personal favorite among her videos is Writer’s Block. When I spoke to her about it she revealed she was only 14 when she made it – 14, do you believe it?

Check it out:

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Drew Shields. Dinner. Grade 12, Age 17. 2012 Gold Medal, Art Portfolio. Materials: polymer clay, found object, led light, cloth, wire.
Listen to Drew discuss this work here.

In this installment of our Eyes on the Prize series, we are proud to present our final pair of 2012 Portfolio Gold winners: Drew Shields and Diane Ward.

Drew grew up in Milwaukee, graduated from Pius XI High School, and now attends the Maryland College Institute of Art in Baltimore. His work, in which sculpted creatures inhabit fanciful diorama worlds, enchants Drew more in the making of it than in the finished product. He explains:

“I allow the physical forms I find and create to dictate the story. Characters will develop relationships, objects develop uses and settings develop history. I may begin with a creature, and then build another. I internalize their emotions, their problems and past experience. I empathize with them. I allow them to reveal their histories and characteristics to me. Where are they? What are they doing? How do they feel about themselves, their situations and their actions? I find the act of organically creating and discovering characters and their stories much more interesting than static dictation and the final piece.” Read More

American Dream vs. Reality by 2012 Portfolio Gold Medalist Elise Wunderlich, Grade 12, Age 18.

In this segment of our Eyes on the Prize series, we would like to introduce you to another pair of 2012 Portfolio Gold winners: Elise Wunderlich and Rosa Wolf.

Elise comes from Lake Oswego, OR, and also spent a semester at The Oxbow School in Napa, California. Much of her work, she says, is actually research:

“I use my physical body as a creative foundation. The work is a quest for my own identity, a research project about who I am. I develop a line of research questions: about my mind, my body, my vices, and my impact upon others, which becomes my unique artistic process.” Elise uses many media, from ink to thread to digital video, in order to explore her place in the world and to gain a greater sense of personal meaning. Check out some of the videos from her Award-winning Art Portfolio here.

Rosa hails from Boise, Idaho, and is now a freshman at the University of Arizona. She writes about her struggles and her successes with a goal in mind to help other teens feel less alone. Read More

Chelsea Borsack. Connected. Grade 12, Age 17. 2012 Gold Medal, Photography Portfolio.

We’re back with another pair of Portfolio Gold Medal winners from the 2012 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards! We’re delighted to introduce you to Chelsea Borsack and Lashanda Anakwah:

Chelsea, age 17, of Oceanside, NY uses photography to illustrate the similarities between natural human emotions and inanimate forms. Each of her pieces pairs a portrait and either a natural or man-made structure. “The aesthetic of each of the latter emits an emotion similar to that of each individual. We often overlook our surroundings and their impact, but it is our surroundings which are largely responsible for our emotions.”

Lashanda, also age 17, of Bronx, NY enjoys experimenting with different genres of writing (such as Journalism, Poetry, and Short Story) and learning how to be flexible with “this wonderful” craft. Her Writing Portfolio includes unconventional topics like her toes and plastic surgery. She explains, “I find it necessary to also talk about the everyday things that many people overlook, while trying to tackle big themes. The common aspects of life are so extraordinary!” Read More

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. Read More

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.
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