MHS Senior Wins National Art Award

Millburn High School senior Alexandra Fagan has won a National Silver Key art award in the 2010 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition.

It is the second year the Millburn High School Art Department has been represented in the National "Winners Circle" for this prestigious competition. Last year two Millburn High School seniors—Michael Cummo and Kyle Scharf—also won National Silver Key Awards.

This year's process began back in December when art students submitted their work to the regional competition for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Millburn High School students won 32 awards in that competition and were celebrated at an awards ceremony at Montclair Art Museum in February. The 13 pieces that won the top "Gold Key" Awards were then juried at the national level, and Fagan's piece was ultimately selected to receive a National Silver Key Award.

The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, which organizes the competition, states on its website, "This year, more than 165,000 works of art and writing were submitted by students from across the country. In late February, 11,000 Gold Key works were forwarded for review on the national level. After all the judging was complete, the awards committee bestowed approximately 1,300 students with national honors."

Fagan will receive her National Silver Key Award along with an award for her teacher, Kathleen Harte Gilsenan, during a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City on June 9. The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is the longest running and most prestigious art competition for middle school and high school students in the United States. The competition promotes creative thinking and technical skills and these goals are aligned with the focus of Millburn Township's art curriculum.