BRATTLEBORO — As the Vermont affiliate for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) is pleased to announce that five Vermont students have been selected as 2013 National Award recipients.
The students are among only 1,600 teens nationwide chosen to receive national medals by a panel of distinguished judges. Works were judged on originality, technical skill, and the emergence of personal vision or voice. Teachers of national winners were also recognized with awards.
2013 marks the 90th anniversary of the the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the country's longest-running and most prestigious award and recognition program for creative teenagers.
National Award winners for art include Wood Adamson, grade 11, St. Johnsbury Academy - American Visions Medal; Bo La Jeoung, grade 12, The Putney School - Silver Medal; Sarafina McLeod, grade 12, The Putney School - Gold Medal; and Serena Pellerin, grade 8, The Compass School (Westminster) - Gold Medal.
Abigail Rampone, grade 12, Fair Haven Union High School, received a Gold Medal and American Voices Medal for her poem, “Raw, Every Night, Edges.”
The three Gold Medal level winners will be honored during the National Celebration on May 31 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The ceremony will be webcast live.
The winning students' work was selected from an initial pool of more than 230,000 art and writing submissions in 28 categories such as dramatic script, journalism, humor, novel writing, science fiction, and painting, sculpture, photography, fashion design, film and animation, and video game design.
The winning teens join a prestigious list of Scholastic Awards alumni including Zac Posen, Lena Dunham, Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Joyce Carol Oates, and Robert Redford.
“We're thrilled that so many more students submitted creative work for the 2013 Awards,” says BMAC Education Curator Susan Calabria. “There was a 250 percent increase in art and writing entries from 2012, and the quality and originality of the work was exciting and gratifying to see. I hope that more teachers, students, and parents become aware of this great opportunity for teens to receive recognition and scholarships. There are many more talented young people in our state, and we would like to see their work at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center for the regional awards and see more go on to represent Vermont at the national level in 2014.”