Scholastic Art Awards Committee
AIA Asheville and the Asheville Art Museum sponsor this competition for middle and high school students in the visual arts from the 21 county Western North Carolina region.
This annual national competition takes place in January. In the year of 2006, 550 entries were received from students from 27 WNC schools. Of these, 143 works by 104 students were recognized by the judges and were exhibited in the Pack Place Gallery from January 21 to February 17. Twenty eight works winning gold key awards will be sent on to the national competition and will be included in the National Scholastic Art Awards Exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.
In past years, some national award winners from our area have received scholarships to continue their art training at the college level.
Committee Chair(s):
David Aiton and Barney Woodard
with Mikkel Hansen, Ava Carr and Amy Conner-Murphy
2009 National Scholastic Art Winners
Drumroll please…The WNC Region is proud to announce that we had two National Scholastic Art Award recipients this year! Congratulations to
Hillary Stowe and
Lee Thao. Hillary Stowe received a
National Gold Art Award for her painting, “Vulture” and Lee Thao received a
National American Visions Art Award for her untitled mixed media work of cut paper. Hillary is a senior at North Buncombe High School, where she works with art instructor Claire Simpson-Jones and Lee is a senior at McDowell High School, where she works with art instructor Karen Dark. This is the 2nd year in a row that students of both Claire Simpson-Jones and Karen Dark have received National Scholastic Art Awards, congratulations Claire and Karen! Their students’ artwork will be shipped to New York City for national exhibitions this summer. Award winners, along with their family and teachers will be invited to attend the National Art Awards Ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City in early June.
Every year the Asheville Art Museum along with its Docent Volunteers and the Asheville Area Institute of Architects, hosts the Western North Carolina Regional Scholastic Art Awards. It is a juried competition that showcases outstanding visual arts created by local middle and high school students in grades 7-12. This year, Hillary Stowe and Lee Thao were two of 18 regional Gold Key winners whose work competed with other top award winners from around the nation at the National Scholastic Art Awards. Approximately 17,000 total works of art are submitted to the national level competition each year. Of those, only 1,600 receive awards. The National Gold Awards are presented to the most outstanding regional Gold Key finalists, and National American Visions Awards are given to students whose work best represents their region at the national level.
