Catonsville Student Named American Voices Nominee

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — Two Baltimore County Public Schools students have been named American Visions nominees and three have been named American Voices nominees in the 2021 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program.

Through the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA), regional Scholastic awards are determined at the gold key, silver key or honorable mention levels. Regional gold key pieces are submitted to the national level of competition. National awards will be announced in the spring,

The top five submissions in the region for visual art are named American Visions nominees and the top five for writing are named American Voices nominees. These nominees will also go on to compete to be awarded a national medal. National winners are honored during a special awards ceremony at the world famous Carnegie Hall in New York City and are eligible for many additional opportunities.

The American Visions Nominees from BCPS are:

• Corinne Ertel, 12th grade, George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology – “To the Universe,” sculpture
• Myah Jackson-Solomon, 12th grade, George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology – “Stagnant,” drawing and illustration

The American Voices Nominees from BCPS are:

• Tiara Aragon, 10th grade, George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology – “As the Oldest,” personal essay/memoir
• Madelyn Mueller, 12th grade, George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology – “Elementary School Whore,” personal essay/memoir
• Nusrat Tusi, 12th grade, Catonsville High School – “The Veil Lifted,” personal essay/memoir

“An incredible 255 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards (184 Art Awards and 71 Writing Awards) were awarded to our amazing and resilient BCPS students during this pandemic,” Sherri Fisher, BCPS coordinator of visual arts, said in a news release. “This has not been an easy task as submission deadlines coincided with the ransomware attack, impacting an already challenged experience for our teachers and students. My sincerest congratulations to the students, their teachers and the schools. BCPS student recognitions comprise 31 percent of all awards in the region – 24 percent of all art awards and 40 percent of all writing awards.”

A virtual ceremony for gold key, silver key and honorable mention award recipients, along with their guests, teachers and jurors, will be held in their honor March 7 at 2 p.m., streaming on BOPA’s YouTube and social media pages. This year’s virtual ceremony will feature keynote speakers LaToya M. Hobbs, a Baltimore-based artist and 2020 Sondheim Artscape Prize winner, and D. Watkins, the Baltimore-based author of “We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America.”

All works are blindly judged by local visual artists, novelists, poets, playwrights, critics and editors. Each piece is judged based on originality, technical skill and the emergence of a personal voice.