During the after hours of school Jenny Beruscha is working vigorously on her self-portrait trying to make it perfect as possible to get in every little detail. Since the project has been assigned she has been working on perfecting it. Every day she has been staying after school to get a little farther with her portrait.
Little did she know that two months later her portrait would be in the Young Artist Show.
This is the seventieth year that the Young Artist Show is being held in Rockford, Ill. on March 6. The Young Artist Show is a high school show, in which high school students submit their art pieces and they get judged at the Rockford art museum. Schools within the vicinity of Rockford can participate for entry in the show.
Students whose work was submitted into the show will be going on the field trip to the art show on March 8 of this year to see other students’ artwork and also their own. The show will be featuring the student’s work as well as showcasing Gregory Scott’s illusionistic pieces. This year brings hopes to a promising show for viewers.
“The art show allows the students to showcase their artwork,” said Basic Art teacher, Sandra Spear. “It also gives them the option to show their artwork to other people that they don’t know.”
Spear helped her students prepare their pieces by helping them mat (frame) their artwork. Even the Advanced Art Honors students helped by matting their own pieces as advanced art teacher, Jillian Corapi previously gave them a lesson in matting their artwork.
“We did a mat cutting lesson for the advanced art students,” said Corapi. “It was nice to have my students prepare their projects for the show themselves, and even the seniors helped the younger students mat their artwork.”
When the matting and tagging the pieces with the artists’ names were done, Corapi and Photography teacher, Kate Duchene loaded up two cars filled with the students’ artwork submissions and drove them all the way to Rockford the night before the blizzard hit Huntley on Feb. 1.0.
For Huntley, the five art teachers submitted 48 students’ work – out of all their classes – towards the show. A wide variety of pieces were chosen from photos to graphics to 2-D and 3-D works, and even ceramics. Only 15 students got in and a total of 16 pieces out of 80 made it towards the show.
“It was a big debate because we wanted to enter the most amount of students possible when it came down to deciding whose artwork was going to be sent and whose was not,” said Spear. “It was decided on a combination of raw talent and how it showed the students’ skills.”
Keish Camara entered her self-portrait into Rockford and got in automatically. Her portrait was very photo-realistic, which means it looks like a photo. It was drawn in black and white oil pastel and she worked five months on it just to get it into the show.
Beruscha also submitted her self-portrait to the show and again, very photo-realistic.
This year six photographs were chosen to be in the show, unlike last year where photography class – for our school – only had one.
“These were students who took photographs outside of a class that they hadn’t been in for two years,” said Duchene. “My seniors continued taking photos and they had their photos selected into the show.”
A lot the students’ work was entered into the show, but only the ones that the judges felt that deserved to go into the show made it in. It wasn’t just consisting of self-portraits, but things through any medium like Dave Cieck’s wired shoe, titled “Walk the Faded Line”, that he made in 3-D Design got into the show, or even Ian Stellmach’s ceramic fountain he called the “Flowering Fountain” that he made in Ceramics. Watercolors, pastel, pottery, pencils, graphics, or even photos were sent to make the show have a more interesting and appealing selection of pieces when people came to view the artwork.
“Creating a piece of artwork takes craftsmanship and creativity to make a worthy piece,” said Graphic Design teacher, Valerie Lindquist.
Out of all the HHS students, only two students got awards for outstanding pieces of artwork.
Ryan Woods and Jenny Beruscha.
Woods got awarded the Staff Choice award for his three-pieced artwork titled “Fishing for Emotion” and Beruscha won the Juror’s Choice award on her self-portrait which is self-titled “Jenny.”
“I felt proud because two of my seniors won awards out of all the entries,” said Corapi. “It is truly a rewarding experience to see their accomplishments with their artwork.”
For any one, getting into show just shows a major accomplishment towards that artist. The judging is probably the hardest thing – in the end – because every year the judging is different, and there are always going to be judges who have different styles of art that they typically prefer. The hardest part is that they don’t know the background details that went into each individual piece and even the art portfolios that were created, which makes them have their own different artistic quality.
“It’s really cool how they give you a certificate when you get into the show,” said senior Joe DeLuca. “Like when you’re an old man you can show your grand kids that you got a certificate from an art show you were in and be like ‘yeah I was in this.’”
-Sydney Hellgeth
Staff Writer