[ot-caption title=”I was honored this past weekend at the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in Washington D.C. (via Scholastic)” url=”https://pcpawprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Screenshot_2014-09-21-22-17-00-1.png”]

This weekend I went to Washington D.C. for a ceremony to honor my sculpture, “The Head,”which was placed in an exhibit at the Department of Education. Every year, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards receives 255,000 submissions for art and writing and narrows it down to 2,000 national award winners.

“The Head” originally won a National Scholastic Art & Writing Award earlier in the year and was later shipped off to New York City for ceremonies at Carnegie Hall and the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. Out of many pieces of artwork in New York City, it was picked to be shipped to the Department of Education later in the year for an exhibit. So my mother and I flew up to Washington D.C. to go to the awards ceremony honoring those artists who got picked to be exhibited.

The ceremony was in a grand room at the Department of Education, filled with pastries, puddings, and juices. I sat down in a seat in the front row next to three older ladies, with student award winners lining the rows behind me. The first thing I saw on the large projection screen was Michelle Obama – yes, the First Lady! She kindly greeted us and apologized for her inability to be there, and spoke about how important the arts are to the nation. She talked about how the individuals who work at the Department of Education love seeing our artwork every morning.

Soon after, the woman sitting next to me stood up and walked towards the podium. I then learned that the three women sitting next to me were Jamie Studley, Deputy Under Secretary of Education, Rachel Goslins, Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and Virginia McEnerney, Executive Director of the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

Additionally, the elaborate ceremony was filled with a myriad of poets who stood up and performed their works. At the end of the ceremony, after each of the artists stood up and spoke to the crowd, I strolled by the displayed artworks in the Department of Education.

I struck up a conversation with some other kids my age who were admiring the artwork. We started talking about art and what we were planning on doing with it in the future. One of the artists, Steven Paul, had taken a black and white photo of his friend. He won the Scholastic National Award for photography after a non-profit artistic organization in Brooklyn saw it. The organization was immediately awed by the photograph and decided to paint it on the side of a building in Brooklyn. Amazingly, media sources such as The Wall Street Journal and NBC News covered 17 year-old Steven Paul’s photograph-turned-mural story. The other boy I spoke with, Nathan Cummings, was one of five 2013 National Student Poets and  is currently attending Harvard University. Steven Paul’s and Nathan Cummings’ humbleness surrounding their accomplishments surprised and inspired me at the same time.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience to be awarded with this honor and to be in close proximity with such important individuals. I can only hope that I will win this upcoming year so I can do it all over again.