Visual Arts

Jackson Symphony League's Color of Music Contest

One USJ student won a best of show award and four others won blue ribbons in the Jackson Symphony League’s Color of Music contest. Kindergarten student Carly Ingram, at right, won the Jordan Tang Prelude Award, which is a Best of Show in the Kindergarten to Grade 2 category. USJ’s blue ribbon winners are Hudson Hamm, Kindergarten; Riley Koerner and Allanah Yellen, both Fifth Graders.; and Samantha Sullivan, Seventh Grade. With more than 7,000 entries, only five students per grade receive blue ribbons.

Pictured below are the Blue Ribbon Winners, (back row, left to right) Alannah, Samantha, and Riley; and Hudson in front.

Art teachers participating in the Color of Music contest receive music to play for the art students while they draw or paint. The students then interpret the music into art.

USJ finalists whose art was entered into the competition included Natalie Allen, Mattie Boyd, and Jessica Garland, 8^th Grade; Samantha Sullivan, Anna Weaver, and Paige Sheffield, 7^th Grade; Caroline Miller, Cameron Briley, and Tricia Burtt, 6^th Grade; Riley Koerner, Kate Petrinjak, Michael Villarreal, and Alannah Yellen, 5^th Grade; Josh Little, Alexander Threet, and Carrie Beth Workman, 4^th Grade; Austin Moody, Matthew Steen, and David Weissenfluh, 3^rd Grade; and Cate Askins, Maddy Gastador, and Braden Mott, 2^nd Grade; Rachel Akin, Clayton Bowers, and Ryan Dye, 1st Grade; and Hudson Hamm, Felicite Hangyas,  and Carly Ingram, Kindergarten.

Alannah Yellen with her Google drawing

Doodling in School for Google

Technology merged with art as Lower and Middle School students doodled logos of Google about their dreams. Alannah Yellen's dream google of being a fashion designer won her first place in the state of Tennessee in grades 4-6. (See pictures at right.)

Representing USJ’s lower school in the competition were Alannah, Page Askins, Madison Faulkner, Brooke Phillips, Honoka Teramato, Laura Lee Morris, Oceane Hangyas, and Sydney Sellers. Middle School’s top doodles came from Leah Margaret Strope and Hope Magee.

Each year Google sponsors a logo competition for students in grades K-12 called Doodle 4 Google. Google.com changes its homepage logo for special holidays and events. These special logos come from student submissions to the  "Doodle 4 Google" competition, in which students "redesign" the Google logo according to a specific theme.

The competition is divided into 10 regions with 4 winners from each region being flown to New York for the final awards presentation. This year's theme was "If I Could Do Anything I Would …" The winning student gets $25,000 towards computers for his or her school, and he or she wins a $15,000 college scholarship and the chance to have his or her design on the Google.com homepage for a day for millions of people to see. View state winners in the competition …

USJ Art Student to have work displayed in national competition

University School of Jackson Senior Sara Barnes has earned a National Portfolio Silver Medal in The Scholastic Art Awards. Although there were about 100 Portfolio Silver awards throughout the country, Sara’s portfolio was one of only five silver awards selected for publication and exhibition. Besides being published by Scholastic, Sara’s artwork will be on display from June 9-25 in the Courtyard Gallery of the World Financial Center in New York City.

National winners are invited to New York City on June 9 to receive top honors from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in a ceremony at Carnegie Hall.

Sara's portfolio of art on the homeless won a Gold Key in the Mid-South Scholastic Art Competition, which sent the portfolio on to the national level. (See some of Sara's pictures, below.)

“Sara’s competition for this national award was great,” said Libby Lynch, USJ Upper School art teacher. “She competed against 11,000 other Gold Key winners from across the country.” Each work of art, she said, is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals on its originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

“Sara's winning portfolio on the homeless illustrates not only a strength in drawing, but a definite understanding of a theme,” Lynch explained. “She took all of her own reference photos and completed her portraits to show that behind the face of homeless people we encounter there is an individual with very real human feelings. She collaged these portraits onto plain cardboard on which she had written portions of the signs that these individuals often hold, purposely distressing the cardboard to make it feel more like the signs that they might hold.” 

Founded in 1923, The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is the oldest, longest-running, and most prestigious recognition program for student achievement in the visual arts and creative writing in the United States. This year, students submitted more than 165,000 works of art and writing. The Awards recognize student achievement in the visual arts and creative writing—in more than 30 categories, including poetry, graphic design, fashion and science fiction.

Through the Scholarship Provider Network, hundreds of seniors who are recognized with a national award are eligible for nearly $4 million in college scholarships at 60 schools and universities. (A story on USJ's Regional Scholastic Art winners is below, after Sara's pictures.)