OSWEGO, NY – Three Gold Keys were presented to a trio of Oswego High School students in the annual Central New York Scholastic Art Awards.
Chelsee Brockwell, Jenna Hotchkiss and Chrissy Abare were all recognized for their outstanding talent while several other Oswego students earned a Silver Key or honorable mention.
The Central New York Scholastic Art Awards is a nationally affiliated art competition which is held annually at Onondaga Community College. This year, artists came from 90 junior and senior high schools in 13 counties and submitted some 4,500 works of art.
Professional judges spent two days examining the work and announced the results on Jan. 19 in a televised ceremony at Whitney Center at Onondaga Community College.
Less than 1000 works were selected to be exhibited and only a handful of gold and silver keys were awarded.
Students from Oswego had an outstanding showing with a total of 18 awards given in a variety of categories; including Fine Art Portfolio, Photography Portfolio, Drawing, Design, Digital Art, Photography and Mixed Media.
Brockwell and Hotchkiss are seniors who were both awarded Gold Keys for their fine art portfolios consisting of a selection of eight of their best high school pieces.
There were close to 200 portfolios submitted for consideration, of which only 39 were selected.
Hotchkiss was also awarded an Honorable Mention for her photography portfolio displaying eight of her best photographs. Entering any portfolio into the scholastics competition is a considerable amount of work for each student and requires many hours outside of the regular class time to complete.
Art Teacher Melissa Martin said, “Jenna Hotchkiss is amazing graphic artist and photographer that I have had the pleasure of working with since she was a freshman in high school. She spent many hours during this last semester preparing not only one portfolio for submission, but two! Two of her individual photographs were awarded Honorable Mention in the Photography category. Her efforts were justly awarded recognition!”
Martin noted, “Chelsee Brockwell worked on her portfolio independently, as she is not presently enrolled in any art courses. She spent many hours during her free time in the art room developing and completing her portfolio for submission. One of her entries is a playable video game which is being entered into national competition next month. She should be commended for her efforts!”
Oswego received many individual awards included a Gold Key for a self-portrait drawing entitled “Spotlight” submitted by Abare.
Martin noted, “Chrissy is a talented sophomore who was also recognized with two honorable mentions for her Harborfest poster design and a digital art entry of a Trigger Fish.”
Haley Annal, Sarah Brown, Hotchkiss and Austin Demott were all awarded Silver Key Awards.
Annal and Brown were both recognized in the Drawing category for their individual pieces.
Hotchkiss received individual recognition for one of her portfolio pieces, “Faces of Me” in the mixed media category.
Demott was recognized for his contribution to the 2010 Harborfest Poster design.
Other students who were recognized as Honorable Mentions for their work in a variety of categories included:
Megan Mahaney – Drawing
Cassidy Barney – Drawing
Sarah Brown – Design
Katherine Robinson – Design
Rebecca Krass – Design
Oswego Middle School student Kayla Volkomer received an honorable mention for her drawing.
The winning and submitted work can be viewed in a slide show linked on the school district homepage: http://www.oswego.org/
The actual work will be displayed at Onondaga Community College until March 4.
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Such wonderful art pieces by such young artists!!! We can look forward with pride that Oswego has created such wonderful artists who may put our name on the map in such positive ways, which never hurts a community. Remember Maggie Henry who showed in this venue has already had a movie credit to her name as an artist.
We look forward to more from each of you, too! Parents and teachers can be proud of this work, and their connection to these artists!
Debbie
Time Books
appreciator of good artwork!