By Sarah Police
Staff Writer
When asked how she feels about her artwork being showcased, senior Michelle Yi is shy and humble. A modest smile comes across her face as she says “I just had a good feeling” about the piece.
Yi is one of fours students at CHS who have received recognition through The Young Masters Art Exhibition. Seniors Christina Wagner and Michelle Yi, and juniors Austin Huens and Ian Maley, will have their art displayed at the Dallas Museum of Art from Feb. 5 through April 8.
The Young Masters Art Exhibition has been an annual competition since 1995. It is sponsored by the Dallas Museum of Art and the O’Donnell Foundation.
To enter the Young Masters competition, a student must be enrolled in an AP art class, and submit an original piece of art or an art history essay. Then, a panel of judges will select 60 applicants to be finalists.
After these pieces of art are accepted, the judges will review the art to make sure every piece is original.
Wagner, Yi and Huens have entered young masters before. Huens even had one piece in the show last year, and though he was not sure he would get in again, but he still hoped for the best.
“I thought it was a very slim chance that I would get in the show again, but I’m pretty amazed that it happened,” Huens said. “Watercolor – the medium of my piece – is my favorite medium.”
Several artists inspired the students to create art that would eventually be accepted into a prestigious show.
“I was pretty inspired by surrealism, line work, and the master of both of those would be M.C. Esher,” Wagner said.
The students are often encouraged in their art class to find an artist to motivate them.
“There is an artist named Ryan Hall, and I really like his art and wanted to do something similar,” Maley said. “I really like Adobe Illustrator and it is just a medium that I think I have gotten really good at.”
But artists are not the only ones who inspire students.
“[My work] is about my brother getting attacked by a junebug. I hate junebugs; they scare me,” Yi said.
Students are also inspired by the big prize in the contest – having their work displayed in the Dallas Museum of Art.
“I would say this is a huge motivation for all AP students to step up their game and try to get their work in the museum,” AP art teacher Tamera Westervelt said. “Just by the nature of your artwork being in the museum, I think it makes them work harder.”
The students at Coppell get the opportunity to enter the contest because of a grant Coppell is involved in.
“We get the opportunity because we are a part (of the AP strategies) grant. It involves the top ten schools in the Metroplex, so we are competing against the best of the best,” Westervelt said.
Westervelt, who has worked at CHS for 19 years, has had her students participate for the past seven years.
“The most we have ever had in the show in this school was five, and we were hoping for six,” Westervelt said.
It was a hard choice for some of the students to pick which pieces to submit.
“I chose two pieces I made last year,” Huens said. “I chose one that was really strong conceptually and the other was stronger technically. So I submitted both of those to compare and contrast.”
Wagner agreed.
“In the words of a famous artist, he got the best of both worlds,” Wagner said.
However, all of this success does not come easy to these students.
“I am really honored,” Maley said. “I think that there are people that have worked harder than me.“
It looks as though the hard work has paid off for Westervelt’s AP students.
“I am very proud of my students,” Westervelt said. “To get your work even on the selection table to me if you see this work you should be proud that yours is even amongst those. I am so excited that they get this opportunity. For any artist let alone a high school artist.”
