Art Contest Opens New World for Students

It was a whole new world for Elizabeth Nguyen, a junior at Niles West High School, as she was making her art show debut last Monday at the Skokie Public Library.

“This is the first art show I’ve had a piece in,” Nguyen said. “It is nerve wracking.”

Nguyen was on edge as a crowd of about 100 people gathered at the library to view the works of 45 students from 19 local schools as congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) presided over a congressional art competition that has been taking place nationally since 1982.

Since its inception, more than 650,000 students have competed from all over the U.S. This year special education students were allowed to submit entries for the first time.

For Nguyen, her “Family Portrait” drawing was among the display. In the art piece, which included inanimate objects such as a statuette and viola, Nguyen used her artistic license to show that her drawings resembled her family, especially her sister. It was quite a stretch for a student using acrylic paints after a years of using oil paints. But Nguyen's piece was imaginative enough for Chris Sykora, a teacher of drawing and painting at Niles West who just started his position in January.

“This was more challenging,” Sykora said.  “I wanted her to feel the pride in being an artist and I really wanted her to finish the piece.  It was good motivation.”

Sykora thinks these types of competitions are good for him as well as the students because they get him deeper into the community.

“Teaching doesn’t end in the classroom,” he said. “To be successful as a teacher you have to reach out to the community in so many different ways.”

While Nguyen was making her art show debut, Niles West junior Danielle Klemens had another place to show off her work titled “I am Power,” which is a photograph of her torso and other body parts. On Friday, a panel of six local experts selected Klemens for  third place in the contest, which means she won a scholarship for a class at the Evanston Arts Center and a gift certificate at a local art supply shop. It was the second award for Klemens in less than two months as in March, her photograph had received a regional honor from the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

To complete the project, Klemens took a picture of her torso and overlayed some of the colors with Adobe Photoshop software. The project, which took a couple of hours, evolved from her digital photography class at Niles West.

“She has been doing art since she was a young child,” said Danielle's mother, Pat. “That has been her passion her entire life. She has been winning awards since grammar school.”

Klemens is planning to become an art major and study art history in college this fall.

“We're extremely proud of her and we think she is extremely gifted. We are lucky to have the Niles Township art program,” Pat Klemens said. “They definitely have a wonderful art program.”

Also taking advantage of the courses offered in the Niles school district was Roey Hazot, who took a picture of his sister just as she was about to start crying. It made for a dramatic shot that Hazot acknowledged came out of nowhere.

Hazot, a senior at Niles North, will be enrolling at University of Illinois at Chicago later this year and plans to study post production and special effects for film. His interest in film-making intensified after he took a photography course.

“To get into film, you need to get into the basics of photography,” Hazot said.

The stories of these three students add to why Schakowsky is an advocate for this program. “ This reflects the artistic ability and awesome potential of our young people,” she said.

The Congressional Art Competition started under Schakowsky’s predecessor, Sidney Yates, and continues to have large numbers of entries both locally and nationally, which the congresswoman considers a very good thing for the students.

“It is no longer debated,” Schakowsky said. “Students in the arts thrive. There is no greater skill than we can arm our young people with than a creative mind.”

Schakowsky said this project is one of the best parts of her job. “We want everyone to feel like a winner.”

Other elected officials addressed the crowd including Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen, who said such projects are vital for the community.

“In hard times one of the first things that gets hits hard in the budget are the arts,” he said. “ But it is one of the great ways young people have a way of expressing themselves.”