‘Joy’ returns to Creative Arts Guild with opening of the Student Arts Expo

Published 3:00 pm Thursday, March 10, 2022

It’s “great” that the Creative Arts Guild devotes the month of March to showcasing local student art, “and a good opportunity for students, especially (those) who don’t get support to be an artist from” elsewhere, said Dalton High School senior Juan Flores Posada. “It motivates you to keep going.”

It “feels really good to learn other people love my art as much as I do,” said Murray County High School senior Alex Lynch, a finalist for this year’s Bernice Spigel Prize for Excellence in the Visual Arts from the Guild. Exhibiting student art in a community space, rather than only inside a school, “gives people a chance to see it more.”

In “visual arts, the average person progresses until sixth grade, and then regresses, because it’s just not cultivated, so the more we celebrate artists, the more we get” outstanding art, said Amanda Brown, executive director of the Guild. “We want to honor their technique and encourage them to continue.”

It’s “very encouraging (for student artists) to exhibit at the Guild, and great exposure,” said Trevor Ledford, a longtime art instructor at Dalton High School. “They need opportunities to get art out there.”

“It’s a big show in the area — the biggest for schools — and we’re thankful,” Ledford added about the Student Arts Expo, which opened March 4. “The Guild does a lot for art in the area — exposing art to (and by) students — and we’re fortunate to have the Guild in the community.”

Reading an email with the news that she was this year’s Spigel Prize winner, “you can imagine the scream — I think all the neighbors heard (my mother and I) — and it left me speechless, except for the scream,” said Dalton High School senior Belisa Borrego. “I’m very, very happy, and very, very honored.”

“Art is a part of me, (so) this is a huge thing for me,” Borrego said. When she started art as a child, she knew immediately this was “not something you leave, (but rather) something you can’t live without.”

The Spigel Prize — which includes a cash prize and a spotlight on the person’s work during Arts in Education Month at the Guild — is awarded each year during the Student Arts Expo to a local high school senior and is named after the Guild’s first executive director, who was instrumental in the founding of the Guild more than 50 years ago.

The Student Arts Expo features kindergarten-grade 12 artwork from public, private and homeschool students in Whitfield and Murray counties. The art will remain on display through March 25 as part of the Guild’s annual celebration of Arts in Education Month. A list of winners is available online at http://www.creativeartsguild.org/arts-in-education/student-arts-expo.

The Art & Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) created Children’s Art Month in 1961 to emphasize the value to children of participating in visual art education, and when the celebration expanded to include secondary school students in 1969 it became officially known as Youth Art Month, according to the Council for Art Education. “In 1984, ACMI created the nonprofit organization the Council for Art Education (CFAE) to advocate for visual art education, and CFAE coordinates the Youth Art Month program at the national level.”

Ramsey Kelley is “happy” to have her art on display in the Guild, said the Westwood School fifth-grader.

”I was one of the fastest ones, I think,” to complete her project as part of a unit on cubes, and she finds art “fun and relaxing.”

”It’s super exciting and an honor” for Ramsey, said her mother Amanda. “We like” Arts in Education Month, and art is in Ramsey’s blood, as her grandfather was a longtime art instructor.

Lynch focuses mainly on human figures, “but crazier, I guess,” although she also included a conventional self-portrait among her pieces on display in the Guild, she said.

“I like to work with stylized pieces, and everyone looks so different, so there are so many (facial) features you can work with.”

Lynch plans to study two-dimensional design at Georgia Southern University and aims to become a tattoo artist, she said.

“I’ve always liked shows like ‘Ink Master,’” a reality TV series that aired on what is now Paramount Network (formerly Spike) and featured tattoo artists competing in various challenges that assessed their tattooing skills, and “it’s cool to put art on someone’s body (he or she) will see forever.”

Posada couldn’t help but see a turtle — “I really like turtles” — when he visualized a teapot, so he decided to craft a green ceramic tortoise teapot, and “Turtle Teapot” earned a third-place ribbon among senior art projects on display at the Guild, he said. It was a “three-four week” process, and he’s currently working on a followup ceramic teapot piece, “The Fallen Angel.”

As he’s explored art more deeply, he’s appreciated it more, he said. “You can expose your feelings or what you like, and it’s been amazing.”

Last year, student art was exhibited virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but “that’s not quite the same as watching young artists and their families see the art hanging here,” as they did during the Student Arts Expo opening reception, Brown said.

“This is one of our largest family gatherings, celebrating young artists is an important part of our mission, and there’s nothing like hearing the joy of all their voices in here.”