By Beckam Moss
Once a year, the National Parent Teacher Association hosts a contest to showcase students’ artwork. This year, Tristan Jaramillo, Sarah Emory, Olivia Ramirez, Harper Robbins, and Fernanda Vargas Velaquez Guyer high school students were all participants in this competition. They made their own individual piece of art to submit, following the “show your voice” theme.
The National PTA Reflections was founded in 1969, it engages nearly 300,000 students and their families in arts education activities each year by encouraging students to explore the arts for fun and recognition. Because of that, Reflections is the nationwide program with the biggest number of students participating annually. The participation/entry process to the contest is only for current members of PTA at their school or district, and each entry must be original work of the participating student.
The contest isn’t limited to writing and art. Students can submit their pieces in six forms like dance choreography, film production, literature, music composition, photography, and visual arts. This year’s students submitted visual art, poetry, a story, and a drawing. After they submitted their pieces of art then their entries were judged on their artistic vision to portray the theme, originality and creativity.
This year’s students all got awards and recognition for their investment of time and hard work into making and creating their own individual pieces. Olivia Ramirez and Kaylee Murray got the honorable mention award, Tristan Jaramillo and Harper Robbins got the award of merit, and Sarah Emory and Fernanda got the award of excellence.
This year’s students had very good things to say about the contest and their participation in it. “Talking isn’t the only way to get a message out, showing your creative mind is just as powerful” Tristan Jaramillo said. Sarah Emory added, “Try to say what you mean so you don’t have to explain what you said.” Olivia Ramirez commented, “Reflections serves as a creative outlet for me and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to enter and be potentially recognized for my work(s)”. Similarly Harper Robbins said, “Reflections is an amazing experience and opportunity”. Likewise Fernanda comments, “great experience, I had a great time creating a piece.”
This contest pushed these natural creatives to come up with original pieces while using their own skills to make them. While some of the students felt that they could have done better on their works of art, this year’s students overall agreed that it was a great experience and an amazing opportunity to show off their artistic skills. It’s awesome that they got the opportunity to show the fruits of what their artistic minds’ came up with. The motivation to create their own art was enough to inspire them and maybe others after them. All in all the PTA contest is an amazing platform and opportunity to compete and show yourself at a national level.
