Art students receive top recognition

Sisters art students were among those honored last Saturday when some 300 students and their families kicked off the opening of the 2011 Central Oregon Scholastic Art Awards at the Pinckney Gallery at Central Oregon Community College.

Students from Sisters, Bend, Redmond and Madras submitted more than 500 pieces of art, and 140 students received awards. Judges chose works that showed personal vision, originality and technical skill.

Sisters High School had six students recognized for their outstanding art. Gold key winners were seniors Tanner Smith and Zoey Wavrin, juniors Maclayne Diener and Elise Herron, and sophomore Riley Barrett.

Smith was competing in a jazz performance at the University of Oregon and was unable to accept his award, but his grandmother was there to accept it for him. Tanner's grandmother was also a Scholastic Art Award recipient when she was a student.

Last year, Smith won a national award for his 2009 sculpture "Hand in Foot" and was chosen to showcase the piece in New York. This year Smith won gold for his art portfolio, which is made up of eight different ceramic sculpture pieces, including "Hand in Foot."

Smith's portfolio also includes "Universal," a simplified ceramic human form from the shoulders up, cradling its head in a state that evokes something between shame, fear and timidity. "The Human Scale" is a ceramic figure with a metal scale over his shoulder that comments on the weight of the human heart and mind, which is demonstrated by the brain on one side and the heart on the other.

Sisters High School art teacher Bethany Gunnarson had high praise for Tanner's work.

"Tanner has wowed his peers and other educators with his ability to be a visionary when it comes to his sculpture," said Gunnarson. "He decides on a concept and does what it takes to make the vision come alive. All but one of his eight detailed and complex sculptures were created in the last six months, so he has been a sculpting machine when it comes to his portfolio. Tanner has great vision and is eager to accept a position in a sculpting program next fall."

Wavrin won gold for her art portfolio, which includes paintings and mixed-media drawings. Her winning portfolio included four watercolor and India ink drawings of abstract shapes floating and flowing throughout the page. Zoey incorporated text and black ink into the composition to create massive movement and evoke subject matter.

In addition, there is a small oil painting showing a mass of cloudlike forms with people peeping out of the mist. Two acrylic paintings use large colorful water-like shapes flowing throughout the composition and around the few distinct subjects: a tree, a face, and a hand. A last acrylic painting used the same fluid shapes to cup and encompass her three main subjects in a more subdued, serious setting.

"To Billy With Love" is painted amidst a portrait of a woman looking toward a young woman under a tree, suspended above a young boy in a sailor's uniform.

Gunnarson said, "Zoey chose eight of the many pieces she had to offer based on her personal vision and style. Zoey lives with her art. It's what naturally flows out of her. She is dedicated to her art and is very fluid and loose with her mediums and allows color and shape to inform her subject matter."

Herron won Gold Key in jewelry for her mixed-media earrings that are silver sheetmetal cut and stamped into the shapes of feathers. Elise attached these sheets to a base of real feathers with wire, which is hung from an earring finding.

Gunnarson told The Nugget that Elise is very creative in her use of metals with mixed media, which in this case were feathers.

"Elise likes to push the boundaries of what jewelry can be, and brings those sensibilities into wearable art," said Gunnarson. "Her earrings are a very good example of a popular style of jewelry in this culture."

Maclayne Diener won Gold Key in both Mixed Media and Painting. "Orbis Terrarum" is a medium-sized mixed-media painting of watercolor, ebony, and ink. The painting is of an open palm with the countries of the world painted in brilliant colors across it. It gives a sense of the personal and the global spectrum in one image.

"God Loves Ugly" is a large mixed-media piece that features a mountain silhouette of oil pastel, tempera, and magazine clippings. Above it is the cycle of the moon in its many stages of light to dark, set apart from the brilliantly colored sky.

Gunnnarson said, "Maclayne has paintings and drawings flowing out of her fingertips. She just needs a canvas underneath to catch it all. As a junior she is developing strong art sensibilities and is creative to the core. Her two Gold Key paintings are extremely unique and fluid in their style and theme."

Sophomore Riley Barrett rounded out the Sisters winners and won gold in sculpture for her paperclip chandelier, which can be seen most days in the art room at the high school.

Gunnarson said, "Riley has tried out different types of art, and she is very good at 3D spatial creativity. Her piece titled '2004 paperclips' is a stunning visual masterpiece. It draws so many comments in the art room because of its simultaneous complexity and simplicity."

These five Gold Key winners will have photographs of their projects sent off to the state judging in February, and if they win at that level they will be notified in March if their piece will go to nationals.

Several other students also received awards. High school students Elize van der Laan, Becca Pelham, Hayley Palmer, Tori DeLeone, Maison Morgan and Becky Thomas were all Silver Key award winners and Jenna Jacobson, Erik Carlson, and Zoey Wavrin earned honorable mention. Sisters Middle School received one Gold Key award.

Gunnarson summed up the special event.

"It was a wonderful celebration of the arts," said Gunnarson. "The ceremony honored those students who were willing to be daring and create art, and encouraged them to continue to make innovations where things seem impossible. The big surprise came at the end of the ceremony when two scholarships were awarded, one for $500 and the other for $1,000. The $1,000 scholarship was awarded to Tanner Smith for his art portfolio."