by Divya Kumar
News Editor
Video by Christina Valdez
All young artists aspire to someday be featured in prominent halls of fame, ones that have been home to some of the greatest of their time. The Young Master’s Competitions allow these students to do as such; submit an original piece of artwork in order to be featured in the Dallas Museum of Art, alongside the real masters.
On Jan. 6, AP Art students finalized their pieces to be submitted into the competition. The Young Masters competition is sponsored by a grant from the O’Donnell Foundation, which provides money for student enrichment in the means of field trips to museums and bringing in other artists to talk to classes about their job.
“This is basically the biggest competition of the year for our art students,” AP 2D Design teacher Tamara Westervelt said. “I’ve been working here for six years, and we’ve been pretty fortunate; CHS has had between three and five works per year that have been selected to be featured as per this competition.”
Students have been working on these particular pieces for roughly six weeks. Out of the roughly 500 entries, only 40 to 50 will be featured in the museum. CHS art students will be competing not only against each other, but also 10 Metroplex schools including Newman Smith, Booker T. Washington and Creekview High School.
Senior Chris Williford was featured last year in the Dallas Museum of Art; this year, as an AP 2D Design student, he is competing again.
“This year I submitted a self-portrait about the confrontation of self,” Williford said. “It felt incredible to see my work hanging in the DMA with so many other talented young artists. I was also excited that complete strangers could access my artwork and read my story.”
The competition aims to feature students from all over the area in which the AP Art grant applies. Typically, two students from each school are featured, though the number may vary. Students are only allowed to submit one of the multiple works they have completed throughout the year and have only one shot at being selected.
This year, the Young Masters Competition branched out to include more than just the AP Design art classes. AP studio classes, AP Art History classes and AP Music Theory classes are also involved. Studio students must also create a work of art, Art History classes are required to write an essay over a piece already in the museum and Music Theory classes are to write an original piece of music.
“We went to the Dallas Museum of art and chose a work that we wanted to write a 500 – 750 word essay about,” AP Art History senior Mitali Sathaye said. “We were to write about how the artist’s culture influenced his or her work and also how our work of art reflected the political, social or philosophical ideas of the time. I wrote about the Crown with Deity Figures – a crown from the Chavin culture that features its Gods.”
For winning students, their essay is showcased in an exhibition with their selected art. Similarly, all of the winners in the art section will be featured in their own exhibition of “Young Masters” within the museum. All pieces will be displayed from Feb. 26-April 17. Students are notified within the next few weeks whether or not they have been chosen.
“There are so many pieces that students have made this year that are absolutely exceptional,” Westervelt said. “They had to weed out one work from the 12 that they’ve made this year; that isn’t easy. I know that each and every one of them is truly worthy of winning this.”
