Kennedy student wins award in state art competition

Press Release 1/17/07

Wipawinee Wannasri, a Bloomington Kennedy senior, won a Gold Key Award in the Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards, hosted by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Students in grades 7 through 12 from throughout the State of Minnesota competed in the contest. There are 16 visual arts categories in the competition, which includes separate contests for students in grades 7 through 9 and grades 10 through 12. Out of 1,200 submissions, a jury of professional artists and designers selected 64 Gold Key Award-winning works by 57 students.

MCAD administers the Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards program and provides an exhibition of all the contestants. The free exhibition, featuring more than 200 works, runs from Jan. 19 to Feb. 11 in MCAD Gallery. There will be an awards ceremony Saturday, Feb. 10.

Gold Key Award-winning work will automatically be entered in the national competition in New York, where panels of prestigious members of the arts and education communities will judge the entries for technical proficiency, originality and emergence of personal style or vision. The jurors’ choices provide feedback to teachers around the country and have a profound effect on curricula and teachers.

Students who win national awards are celebrated each year with a series of high-profile national events, including an awards ceremony in New York and an exhibition in Washington, D.C.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program was founded in 1923 by M. R. Robinson, publisher of The Scholastic magazine and founder of today’s Scholastic Inc., a well-known educational publishing and media company.

The Awards were designed to foster creative expression by secondary students and to recognize and encourage achievement in the creative arts by offering visibility and scholarships. Supported by the grassroots efforts of 90 regional organizations serving 35 states, the Awards are the largest, longest-running and most generous program in the country recognizing the creative work of young Americans.

Alumni of the Awards have been some of the country’s leading artists, including Richard Avedon, Mel Bochner, Philip Pearlstein, Red Grooms, Robert Redford and Andy Warhol—all of whom were recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards while still in high school.

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