WMHS Trio Recognized with Scholastic Art Awards

In a weed-choked black and white field stands a blood-red scarecrow.

Soldiers’ dogtags glint in the sun.

A colorful cartoon-style self portrait shows four sides of its subject.

Art work by three students has been recognized in this year’s Boston Globe Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition.

Jaimee Winer, a junior, received a silver key award for her creepy movie poster, “The Farm,” with its red scarecrow.

Billy Hammond, a senior, received honorable mention for his black and white image of the dogtags, which he photographed and printed.

Laura Standley, a junior, received honorable mention for her self portrait.

Winer chose to illustrate a poster for a horror movie for a Photoshop class because she likes that genre, she explained. She took a photo of Spence Farm “before it was cleaned up,” while the city was debating whether to buy the property. For the main graphic, she pieced together black and white negatives and inserted the scarecrow.  “Farms are supposed to have scarecrows,” she said. She made it red to visually  “pop” from the poster.

Above the graphic, Winer included the names of friends as actors in the horror flick; below it, the name of her brother, David Riemer, who aspires to be a film director, among the credits. Winer created logos for the film rating board—she rated the film PG-13—the movie production company and even the “Coming in June, 2012” teaser, all to make the poster “look authentic.”

She also wrote a synopsis of the film, which involves missing children, other kids’ reports of strange goings-on at the farm—but “People don’t believe you. Who believes kids?”—and the scarecrow, a killer.

Her grandmother, Sandra St. Hilaire, was excited that the poster won an award, Winer said, a little surprised with a silver key.

How does the fictional movie end?

“I don’t know,” Winer said.

The projects took two weeks of classwork last year, she said, when she was a sophomore, in the class of Susan Thifault.

Now Winer wants Photoshop for her home computer.

Winer wants to study marine biology when she goes to college. She loves the ocean, she said, and wants to advocate to save them.

Hammond shot the dogtag photograph on assignment, he said, to show social ills. He was examining the subject of war. He had photographed Woburn cemeteries, with veterans’ graves marked by American flags. He went into Boston, shot the Holocaust memorial, didn’t like the visual result. He learned then, he said, about the memorial behind Old North Church to veterans who died in Iraq.

He took two shots:  one closer and one farther away. He liked the closer one better. He knew right then, he said, that “it would be good, maybe not award-winning, but good.” The negative printed easily; that, he noted, isn’t always the case.

Hammond took his first photography class as a junior at the high school. His took the dogtag shot as a student in the class of Sarah Dugan.

He plans to study communications in college this coming school year, to concentrate on TV production and minor in photography.

He’s worked on TV production, in the cable studio at the high school, since he took a TV production class freshman year.  He’s volunteered there ever since, covering all three of the Council of Social Concern telethons, he pointed out. He also directs morning announcements at the high school.

Hammond is one of the sons of Heather and William Hammond, Sr., and the twin brother of Matt. Matt is interested in international business and languages, his brother said.

While Hammond has received four college acceptances, he’s waiting to hear from his first choice, Emerson. He should hear April 1, he said.

Standley draws to relax, as counterpoint, she said, to her work in science and math. She is taking an AP chemistry class along with honors physics and honors pre-calculus. Drawing allows her “to be creative, not analytical,” she said. Standley’s parents, Mindy and Peter, are both “into science and technology,” Standley said.

While she’s always liked to draw, she really got into it in middle school, she said. She had more time then, she said, and spent it drawing.

Each piece of her self-portrait holds special meaning for her. The upper left corner, which shows pieces of paper flying off a pile, illustrates that “there are a lot of things going on,” she explained. "Sometimes it’s overwhelming.” The top right:  coursework, with math and science symbols:  a beaker, a square root and the molecular composition of water.

The racquet and ball? Freshman year “I was introduced to tennis,” she said. She made the varsity team. Tryouts for this year are coming up soon, she noted.

The large illustration of her with her computer shows “how I normally am at home, relaxing.”

She created her work in the class of Donna Childs.

In college, Standley wants to study engineering—she doesn’t know what branch yet—and to continue making art “to stay sane.”

Standley, like Winer, created her art piece last year, in the spring of her sophomore year.

The students’ work will be exhibited at the high school at Springfest on May 12.