Savannah’s Portfolio, Honorable Mention Portfolio, Savannah Anderson, Patrick Henry High School
Artist Statement
My collection show parts of me, with pieces portraying my journey to heal from past events with how I’ve come to love myself through the pieces of fun memories of my friends, family, and showing some of my hometown’s popular landmarks. With pieces 1 and 6, represents a more personal side to me which until this year, I never was comfortable about talking, let alone draw. These pieces show some of my struggles/loss of family and by using materials I've never used; it not only allowed me to get out of my comfort zone while also sharing how I grew as person. With Piece 2, I wanted to show how chaotic my life was and how connecting with my culture was just lost in the mess. I am Guatemalan and was adopted when I was young. I’ve always wanted to learn more about my culture but with growing up and now college, that idea gets lost in the mess of memories and plans. I was required to use Oil Pastels which I never used up to that point but wanted to, however once again I just didn’t have time. Moving on to Piece 4, this was a more lighthearted piece, which captured the fun moments with friends during our last high school trip at the amusement park. With pieces 3 and 5, I was looking to expand my portfolio to include some of the historical landmarks in my hometown.
Personal Statement
I was adopted as an infant, however there was always an open conversation about my biological family. My mother was very open with me from a young age to the point I can’t even say when she told me, I just always knew. I never was concerned about finding my biological parents because I was perfectly fine with my mother, grandmother, and my childhood friends. It wasn’t until my grandmother had a fall in 2018 which made her slowly lose the battle to Dementia. She wasn’t my grandmother biologically, only a sweet neighbor who took a liking to me but quickly became my Nana. Losing her hit hard, but I never really spoke about her or her passing (she’s still with us physically but unfortunately her mind and memories have been taken away by Dementia) until recently. It took me a long time to even address my loss of her presence in my daily life, let alone paint/draw about it. But after one school project, I became more comfortable talking about her and even some of my past struggles. Sure, I painted/drew some pieces that address some issues but only I knew the true meaning behind it. However, finally drawing pieces that people understood the true meaning of without explaining the symbolism, felt nice. Just by drawing/painting, helped me be a bit more open about my past and struggles. My grandmother, next to my mother, played a huge role in my life, even if it was only for a bit and I’ll be forever grateful for that.
A Friend’s Journey, Honorable Mention Portfolio, Munich Bruschz do Nascimento, Christiansburg High School
Artist Statement
All of the submitted works are based on a story I have written and the characters that are my original creations. That is also why organizing the works was easier as they just needed to follow the plotline already laid out. The key goals of the works are to tell the story with minimal use of words and to demonstrate the main subject's characteristics and personality through the image. Which sarcastically was also the hardest part of achieving in the works, having to depict the character's emotions and personality without having a painting fully focus on them was a complex problem to fix and to go around. I wanted the images to focus on the interactions and the world in which the story occurs, causing me to find different ways to depict the characters. I made the characters interact with the world around them to show how they are and how they present themselves, that way I could reach both of my goals in the portfolio. The main reason I made all the artworks digital can be seen in the work "A Friend's Tale" where I used previous artworks for the character to recall their journey to their friend. The accessibility of the digital works allowed me to create a comic strip to connect the works and let the viewer truly understand what the works had in common outside of the same characters. Color and shadow tones also play a big role in the storytelling of the artwork. The cooler tones were used for more tense or mysterious situations, an example is the "Castle at Dawn" where every part of the painting has cold tones except for the light of the candle, but as the cold blue takes up more than 80% of the painting they give no comfort. In contrast, the warm colors were used to provide a sense of comfort to the viewer such as in the painting "Save from the Rain," even though there are many blue hues the warm tones the warm color overtake the painting giving a sense of peace and care in the painting
Personal Statement
I have always drawn, that is something that defines my very being. Many of my memories are about something I drew or of me drawing. Creating art shows how I perceive the world and lets my imagination and creativity run wild. Art allows me to express and communicate in a way that words cannot. Art makes me feel whole and constructs my being. Still, anyone can say that about any activity they worked on for a long time. What had set my identity as an artist was and is essentially my relationships with the people around me. The support and encouragement from my family, teachers, and friends, and the many requests of "Can you draw me?" or "Can you draw this?" made me feel better about drawing and supported me when I questioned my skills. The shine in the eyes of my supporters made me feel good about what I was doing and encouraged me to do better and advance my skills with the pencil and brush. My teachers supported me by pushing me to learn and try new techniques and get out of my comfort zone. They allowed me to experiment with new mediums I would have never touched before, and pushed me to show my work in public and to enter local art shows. They have created a good foundation for my skills and made me confident in my ideas and work. Additionally, they allowed me to become certain that I wanted to work with art for the rest of my life. With all the support I received which I am grateful for, the most important is my family's support. They always have encouraged me. They buy me new art supplies to support my passion, find art courses I could enter, and stop and listen to my new ideas or rants about this new technique or art piece I saw. They are my biggest supporters, they always have this beautiful shine in their eyes that is brighter than any other one I have seen. Their eyes always glow when they see an artwork of mine that they like. Whenever I have a new idea or I am proud of a project I am working on, they are always the first ones to know. My family is the foundation of my personality, dreams, goals, and creativity. They allow me to think that anything is possible with hard work and drive to move forward.
Ice Town, Honorable Mention Portfolio, Emily Paul, Blacksburg High School
Artist Statement
Ice Town is a documentation of my time in northern Alaska as part of a research trip to study emissions from the sea ice. I was quickly plunged into a white world alien from where I had grown up. However, just as the leaf litter crunching beneath my feet is home to me, the snow capped drifts and endless sea of white is home to others. This portfolio explores a non-so-dormant town in the middle of an Alaskan winter through thin horizon lines of buildings and telephone poles and images that balance vast emptiness with the only permanent settlement for many miles. However, there is a certain loneliness as the town is seen from a safe distance, similar to how a polar bear would be approached. I attempted to capture the unfamiliarity I felt navigating a new world through the tone of eeriness and liminality. The color scheme is muted and bleak, painfully centered compositions are uncomfortable and unnerving, and people are reduced to blips. Digital photography was chosen as a medium to capture the subtle shifts between the horizon and the snow, as well as to catch the fleeting moments of the early morning sunrise or seeing a polar bear. The flattened image is emphasizing the ephemeral that is only exaggerated by unfamiliarity.
Personal Statement
Even with one foot in front of the other, how will I ever make it to the top of this hill? The biting morning air nips my face. Flashlights dance in the darkness on the shortest day of the year, slowly merging into the sunrise of the winter solstice. I grew up here, working farmland in the summer, playing in the creeks of Appalachia, and listening to the thrum of woodpeckers echoing through the forest. My favorite brown Karakachan livestock guardian dogs, Cosmo and Elly, weave through the quiet with a soft pit pat as we hike, steering us up the difficult, wooded farm path, through paddocks of sleeping pigs and eerily peaceful geese. When I joined my county’s robotics team, I set out on another difficult path. As a freshman, I was hungry to program and learn to drive the robot. However, I was the token “diversity” representative that STEM environments coveted, but persistent biases affected many aspects of my education and my sense of self. I often felt like a wrongly reported statistic. These places did not have space for women, much less someone whose gender does not fit in a box. The trees clear as we reach the summit of our hike: Potato Hill. Tents with warm apple cider and, of course, farm fresh baked potatoes await. As my body warms and the sky lightens with the sunrise of the winter solstice, so do my spirits. The breathtaking openness is in stark juxtaposition to the earlier tree cover. I see my past that was defined by lack of resources and inequality open up. I am ready for the seemingly limitless possibilities. I am surrounded by coworkers, friends, and family: people who endure the trek with me, enjoying the view together. When I found myself excluded from the larger conversation of gender inclusion within STEM, I organized a group for programmers on my team who felt similarly. I spent afternoons pouring over tutorials and writing code by hand to prepare for our meetings. I wanted to disrupt the predictable system that prevented equal participation on the team by beginning initiatives for kids that target gender and socio-economic diversity. Like on Potato hill, I have learned that having a community beside me is the first step to inclusion. I want to be a pioneer in this community for diverse kids who want to participate in STEM in Appalachia. I am more than a statistic, and they are too. I look forward to expanding my understanding and contributions to intersectional issues by collaborating with boundary-breaking peers to enact positive change. I hope to utilize our collective wisdom to tackle issues like social inequality, which disproportionately affect communities like mine, at a larger scale. Even after a demanding climb, I can enjoy the view. The sun breaks through the horizon bathing the sky in a light silky blue, catching on the frost-laden grass. This community is like a sunrise: full of potential and only brightening from here.
Caroline’s Portfolio, Honorable Mention Portfolio, Caroline Reichardt, Patrick Henry High School
Artist Statement
As an artist, I strive to make my work relatable. The works I have submitted all represent meaningful memories; they explore concepts from my interests, spirituality, and background. With these pieces, I experimented with different types of media and enjoyed seeing the impact on the execution of my ideas. For example, I used graphite to create a powerful and focused image in "The Step Down" and used fabric to create a warm and comforting presence in "Enveloping." I have always been most comfortable using colored pencils, therefore these pieces are outside the box for me. This portfolio represents my own personal growth on my journey to discover my identity as an artist.
Personal Statement
One afternoon when I was seven years old standing on the soccer field, I suddenly felt as if my lower body had been replaced by a teetering pile of bricks. As I stumbled over to my parents, I hoped the numbness in my legs would go away and never come back, but with every soccer game, it did return. Later, I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. These conditions create low blood volume allowing blood in my legs to pool and hypermobility in my joints. As a result, I get hurt easily and this makes physical exercise difficult and fatiguing. As I watched all my peers effortlessly playing sports, I felt upset and left out. This early feeling of inadequacy is a large part of why I feel the need to be perfect. I believe I must be better than everyone else just to meet my own standards, for better or worse. In addition to athletics, I also obsessed over my art and sometimes got too caught up in detail work. This thought pattern about avoiding judgement from others caused me to attempt things beyond feasibility; however, an art project earlier this year helped to change my mindset. We were tasked to create twenty variations of an object without worrying about how well they turned out. What was at first a paralyzing concept turned into something enjoyable. Some of my best work was part of this assignment, which deeply surprised me since I was used to not being satisfied with anything less than perfection. I learned that just because something is not perfect does not mean that it is any less meaningful. As a student, I have excelled. I have a 4.32 GPA as well as being an AP Scholar with Distinction and a Governor’s Early College Scholar. I was selected to attend NASA academies such as Virginia Space Coast Scholars and Virginia Aerospace Science and Technology Scholars. I am an officer in multiple clubs at my school, including being president of our FBLA club. I have won several awards at art shows, including second place in the illustration category for the Scholastic Art Show in Virginia’s Southwest Region. Without this competitive drive, I would not be where I am today.