2021 Visual Arts Showcase

Welcome to the 2021 Visual Arts Virtual Showcase! We are thrilled that 70 students entered this contest, which is part of the National PTA’s “Reflections” program. This year’s theme was, “I will change the world by…”

Entries are rated according to:

Interpretation of the theme (the most heavily weighted criteria): How closely the piece relates to the annual theme, based on the Work itself and the artist statement.
Creativity: How creative and original the piece is in its conception of the theme and its presentation.
Technique: The level of skill demonstrated in the basic principles/techniques of the arts area.

Thank you to our panel of visual arts experts who reviewed the artist entries!

WINNING ENTRY: DRAWING/PAINTING

Catharina S. “Earth Trees” (Age 11)

Artist’s Statement: I will change the world by planting trees. Over time we can turn the world into a better, greener place again. For this art piece I used watercolor and some watercolor pencils. There are four Earths in this painting, from smallest to largest to show the growth of the tree overtime. This painting has a lot of blue and purple with some uneven areas and lighter areas to catch your eye. The smallest earth is more faded while the largest earth is very colored to show the earth is the happiest if we take care of it.

WINNING ENTRY: PHOTOGRAPHY

Rubi O. “Reach the Light” (Age 12)

Artist Statement: There is always light in this world. It may be somewhere where your eyes can’t see it, or your skin can’t feel it. Or possibly you might not want to believe in it however, we all need to see light at least once in our lives. Change the world by showing others that there is light in this world. Then those who have had a glance of light will want to reach out the palm of their hand and see the light, be the light forever.

DRAWING AND PAINTING ENTRIES

RUNNER UP – Kayla G. “Forest of Stumps” For I Will Change The World By I made a peace emphasizing the amount of trees that people are cutting down. Every year humans cut down about 15 billion trees a year while only replanting about a third of that. The girl with the bright hair symbolises how all the trees have been cut down. It shows how all the trees have been cut down and how there is nothing left. Children should be able to have fun and climb on trees but humans have cut them down leaving no trees to play on and a downfall of our planet.

Amari W. “Love Our Differences” I will change the world by being more inclusive. Not everyone is going to look the same on the outside. We are all different colors, sizes, genders and these are all things that make us unique. I decided to do very colorful people to represent how we might not all look the same on the outside, but we are all living humans on the same planet.

HONORABLE MENTION: Amaya M. “Roots to Earth” In this piece, I showed how I would change the world. I attempted to convey deforestation and how we could help this by planting trees. The roots coming off the hand symbolizes that we are all part of the earth and that we need to help. The flowers coming off the hands are showing how everything could bloom one day.

Anna A. “Equality” The theme I chose to show in my art piece is equality. It doesn’t matter what race you are, or your sexual orientation, or your economic status; everyone should be treated equally. Our society needs to accept that each and every person has differences, and that we should celebrate diversity and acknowledge that despite those differences we are all equal.

Eva S. “Don’t be Scare to Show PRIDE.” I will change the world by showing rights to the lgbtqia+ community. Showing this community that it is normal to have pride and not to care about what others say. The flags on this wall may not be as well known (Cupio and the correct non men loving non men flag) But that doesn’t mean they’re not valid. I wanted to do this peace in color because it shows how open the lqbtqia+ community is. How all the colors have different unique meanings. The drips and smudge effect shows how no matter what other people think, there will always be others to support you even if it’s clear or not.

Casey C. “Love Over Hate” I will change the world by spreading kindness and compassion. Our world is one with hate and anger. It is also a world filled with love and joy. People need to see happiness and stop being so hateful to each other. I broke my piece in half. One is a world with hate and one with love. I represented the hatefulness with mean posters and dark colors. I represented love by using lighter colors. I made the viewer want to be in the world with love and kindness and compassion using these colors.

HONORABLE MENTION: Bailee V. “When the Humans Came” I will change the world by ending pollution. In my art piece, I represented a before and after of our world and how we treat it. We need to all do better at not having as many factories and use electric cars so it doesn’t pollute the environment. From now on, I will change the world by throwing away my trash and taking care of our environment and I highly advise you to do the same.

HONORABLE MENTION: Louisa P. “Embracing Nature” In this art piece centered around the statement “I will change the world by”, I chose to display a city scene with greenery with flowering nature overtaking the buildings, paths, and parks. Many cities today are composed of cold concrete, however, by creating cities where nature is the focal point, civilization will look like a work of organic art. From window boxes stuffed with shrubbery to mossy walls with climbing vines, I will change the world by keeping the busiest places on earth green.

Lily C. “A Breath of fresh air” For the art project “I will change the world by”, I drew a bicycle riding next to a windmill with a handful of sheep in the background because I wanted to spotlight the world problem of pollution. I put a bicycle because they are better for the environment, whereas cars use gas that is bad for our planet, spewing out toxins of mostly carbon dioxide that is horrible not only for the air, animals and climate, but for us. The windmill in the background symbolises what we should do more of in the world. Windmills help the environment a lot. Lastly I put sheep because they are an important part of our beautiful world.

Sabine M. “Helping Hands” For the theme of “I will change the world by. . .” I created a piece that illustrated one hand giving an apple to another hand. This showed how I would help solve world hunger by giving food to starving people worldwide. Furthermore, the earth symbolizes how we are all a part of this worldwide problem because even though we may not have this problem ourselves, many of our neighbors and communities are full of many people who need our help. Every single one of us can make a change even just by giving food to someone on the streets.

Spencer H. “Cleaning Up the Oceans” In this piece I wanted to solve ocean pollution. The trash is black and white because it is the bad things in the ocean and the things that we don’t want while the rest of the color is the things we want. The recycling bin is scooping up the trash representing a net picking up fish.

Beckett J. “Destroyed Beauty” For the theme of I will change the world by, I drew a representation of forest fires and how you can see two sides of the picture: the fire & destruction of forests, and also the calmness of a clean & healthy forest. The image also depicts how people are making an effort to stop the fire from spreading even more. Forests are a major part of ecosystems and are homes to hundreds of thousands of animals. This has meaning to me because I have seen fire and the destruction that they can cause to people and animals around the world.

HONORABLE MENTION: Kelly T. “A World Changed” For the theme of “I Will Change the World By” I painted my piece. The message I tried to convey while painting my piece was that acceptance is important, acceptance leads to change and as a new generation we need that. The reason why one of the girls has more blue than the other is to show the repetition of old ways. While the other shows more color to imply that she has grown to learn more because of her acceptance. Showing the theme of my painting.

HONORABLE MENTION: Delaney J. “True Beauty” For the theme ‘I will Change The World By,’ I chose to do the beauty standards. On the left side, we have the beauty standards in the U.S. She is the definition of beauty, she is what people would call perfect. On the other side, we have a normal person, who doesn’t match the ideal standards. Our imperfect girl hasn’t changed because she is happy with who she is even though she is called names. The girl who is considered beautiful hates herself for it. I will change the world by letting people be who they want to be.

Eleanor K. “Two Futures” For the theme, I will change the world by… I drew a cityscape where one side showed what our world is turning into because we are ruining our world with pollution. The other side shows what our world could be if we start taking care of our environment. I was able to portray that our world could be clean and colorful. Our world can become beautiful again, but we have to start changing how we deal with pollution first. It will not be easy, but our world can be restored to its original nature.

Alexander M. “Golden Frisco” I will change the world by taking a look at it to see what needs my help. I can look around our world and see what we have made of it. I look around to see pollution and trash blown and thrown everywhere. By taking one small step for me, it makes one big leap for mankind. I know together we can make the world a better place. Making it better for all the people that will live long after we are dust.

Sarah C. “For Now and in The Future” For the theme, I Will Change the World By…, I chose to draw a landscape about the air pollution in the world and a solution to it. I drew grey buildings with smoke coming out of it to represent factories. Factories are main sources of air pollution with all the chemicals and poisons it emits. A solution to the gasses and fossil fuels that pollute the air are solar panels. Solar panels rely on the sun’s energy and do not produce harmful gasses. Windmills are also important because they convert wind power into a type of energy.

Hana S. “Making a World that Accepts Everyone” I want to change the world by making the world that accepts everyone and making a world where everyone can live peacefully, not being said terrible things and being hurt. In the news, people seem to not accept everyone. I want everyone, people with different skin color, people that have different things than others to be accepted because everyone is different and we should be proud of that. I also want everyone to be proud of what they are because everyone is special in different ways and being different is wonderful. I want people to be accepted and everyone being happy.

HONORABLE MENTION: Isabelle H. “Moral Equality” I will change the world by going from our homophobic, racist, bullying society. To a world where there is LGBTQ+ rights, integration, and inclusivity. The right side of my piece is in black and white which portrays negative energy. The blood dripping down from the clouds shows the viewer all the pain those negative words have given to people. The left side is more colorful and the color of the clouds represents the words peeking through. Unlike climate change or poverty, these moral problems can be fixed by just being kind and respectful to each other.

Gus B. “Stop This Hate” I will change the world by stopping racism. In my art piece, I used a protest against racism as the idea. The right side of the art piece shows an old city with factories producing smoke and it also has a big brown building, which is run down and old. This illustrates the mistakes mankind has made, which in this time period there was a lot of racism against people of color. On the left side, there is a new futuristic city with a big tower called “The Tower of Unity, which shows what mankind can produce with everybody.

HONORABLE MENTION: Olivia V. “Drowning” I will change the world by slowing down climate change. When I heard about the topic my mind went straight to climate change. Climate change is a huge problem in the world. It is causing the ice caps to melt in the arctic making the water levels of the ocean rise. I symbolised this by putting pieces of land surrounded by water. We must stop ignoring the fact that the world is warming and we must do something about it.

Edie H. “Roots of the People” For the theme I will change the world by, I chose to draw a picture representing deforestation. I drew one tree, and on one side it is full of life. There is a person who is watering the tree. This person is full of color. To me the color yellow represents happiness and your true self. On the other side of the tree, a person is holding a chainsaw to cut the tree down. They also have a mask with a happy face to cover their face up, because they are not really happy cutting down trees.

Kiera P. “A Better Earth” I wanted to show what the world could be when we take care of it and inspire people to make good choices for our planet.

Grace G. “Let it Grow” I will change the world by doing my part to stop climate change and pollution. No matter where I am in the ocean, in a grassy field or up in the mountains I will do whatever I can to stop it. Trash is everywhere if you were to go outside you would probably find a piece of trash on the ground. That is why in my picture I show people picking up trash, because if everybody who could, picked up even one piece of trash a day and threw their trash away. Then the world would be a better place.

Athena S. “Earth has 2 Sides” I will change the world by, stopping littering, in my art piece there is a half a world that has trash all over the land, the water/sky is dirty, their are dead trees around that half of the world,the other half is clean with the trash in the trash cans and water is blue and clean also the sky is clear and I put a recycle sign in the clean side to show what my art piece is about, my art piece has the trees and the people stand out, that is how I want change the world.

Tejas M. “Growing Life” In my art piece I represented the theme by showing the recycling bin watering the growing plant. The problem that I am showing is droughts, and global warming, and how the plant isn’t getting enough water. The solution I am showing is the recycling bin. I chose to use color because on the plant, it helps show the growing life.

David L. “problems of our world” In my art piece I illustrate the theme of cleaning up the world. Not just by cleaning up trash but cleaning up our problems, our difficulties and differences. Everything that needs to be changed or fixed is being taken care of 1 by 1.

Isabella M. “Woman 2024” For “I Will Change the World By,” I painted a woman in a suit and tie. I painted this because lot of people think that woman can’t be in a powerful position, like a CEO or as the president. They think we’re too “soft” or “emotional” when in reality, we could do just as good a job as all of the men in the world. I chose to make the suit and tie purple because purple is a very bold color and being bold is one of the things you have to do to become a powerful person.

Elle M. “Oil kills the earth” I will change the world by cleaning up oil pollution. In my art piece I show a duck in oil getting washed in a sink. I decided to make the bathroom very light and cartoony so that the oil really pops up on the page, so the viewer can see how it is making a big difference. When oil gets in the air or in any place of water it can ruin the whole ecosystem around it. The reason why the duck has oil in it’s mouth is because some animals can mistake oil for food and can kill them.

PHOTOGRAPHY ENTRIES

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