Southwest Virginia Students Announced as 2019 Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Award Recipients

The Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley announces the regional award recipients of the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Presented by the nonprofit organization the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the 96th Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the country’s longest-running and most prestigious scholarship and recognition program for creative students in grades 7–12.

This program year, nearly 340,000 works of art and writing were submitted to more than 100 Affiliate Partners across the country. Representing schools from Botetourt and Buchanan County to Bristol, over 800 pieces were submitted for our regional competition. Two hundred twenty six creative teens from Southwest Virginia received regional honors, including Gold Keys, Silver Keys, Honorable Mentions, or American Visions & Voices nominations, from The Fine Arts Center.

In celebration of this year’s regional recipients, a reception and awards ceremony will be held at the Center, 21 West Main Street in downtown Pulaski, on Sunday, February 24, from 1-4pm. The Center is open on weekdays from 10-5; the exhibit literally covers the walls. There is an amazing amount of talent represented in this exhibition.

Since the program’s founding in 1923, the Awards have fostered the creativity and talent of millions of students and include a distinguished list of alumni including Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Philip Pearlstein, Sylvia Plath, Stephen King, Richard Linklater, Zac Posen, and Lena Dunham, all of whom received recognition in the Awards when they were teens.

For Gold Key works of art and writing in the Awards’ 29 categories, including architecture, painting, flash fiction, poetry, printmaking, video game design, and more, the opportunities for recognition will continue when the works are adjudicated again on a national level by a panel of leading creative professionals. National Gold Medalists will be announced in March 2019 and will be honored during a special awards ceremony at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York City in June 2019. All National Medalists are eligible for a wealth of additional opportunities such as inclusion in the Art.Write.Now.Tour traveling exhibition and The Best Teen Writing anthology. National Medalist poets are considered for the National Student Poets Program, the nation’s highest honor for young poets presenting original work.

A complete list of 2019 regional Gold Key Scholastic Art & Writing Awards recipients is available online at artandwriting.org.

Beckie Cox, President of the Fine Arts Center’s Board, has this to say about the exhibit, “Art is a universal language. It inspires and opens a window of the future through creativity, while at the same time records history. The talent of the students is amazing. one can only imagine the future scientists, artists, engineers and more from the art exhibited in the Edna B. Love Gallery.”

SPONSORS: The Alliance is grateful for its generous sponsors, who provide funds to support and produce the Scholastic Awards at the national level: Scholastic Inc., The Maurice R. Robinson Fund, Command Web Offset Co., The New York Times, New York Life Foundation, The Herb Block Foundation, Blick Art Materials & Utrect Art Supplies, Golden Artist Colors, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Entertainment Software Association Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Amazon Literary Partnership; numerous other individual, foundation, and corporate funders; and, for the National Student Poets Program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Poetry Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets.

The Fine Arts Center of the New River Valley is pleased to sponsor the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for nearly twenty years.

For more information about the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, visit the Scholastic News Room: http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/artandwriting. For more information about the Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley, visit the Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/facnrv, or the website, http://www.facnrv.org, or call 540-980-7363.