In Jan. many North students were honored at North’s regional for the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. The Scholastic Art Awards is an art and writing competition. The awards that participants can receive at the Scholastic Art Awards are the gold and silver key. The gold key is the highest award a student can earn. With the key, you are given recognition, and recipients get to go to the exhibitions, which are events that can take place in New York or Washington D.C. At the exhibition, artists who have participated in this year’s show get to show their artwork or even portfolio here. 

Just like the gold key, the silver key is the second highest award that you can earn. The silver key also grants recipients the ability to go to Scholastic’s exhibitions.

Winners from the regional show from North are Simone Wright, freshman who received a gold key; Alyssa Perry, senior who received a silver key; Emily Hartmann, senior who received a gold and silver key; Hunter Petersen, a December graduate from North who received a silver key on his portfolio and gold key; Emma Ellis, senior who received a silver key and Annabelle Handjojo, sophomore who received a silver key as well as six students who received honorable mentions.

Handjojo describes her digital art piece to be a flying koi with her being inserted into the work.

“The project was created in my art class and is a digital colleague between realism and fantasy,” said Handjojo

Her inspiration mainly comes from her goldfish at home along with her fascination with flying creatures. Her artistic abilities began from a young age, drawing fanart of her interests. 

“I started drawing from a very young age. I was mainly drawing fanart,” says Handjojo.

Other students were honored for photography pieces. Petersen’s artwork “Exhausted” is about quarantine, the bad, the ugly and his mental health state throughout the pandemic. With his artwork, he wanted to dive deeper into his piece, showing a more conceptual side of his photography projects.

Although slightly disappointed in the recognition he received, he would still encourage all students to participate in the show.

“I would 100% say [participate]; if you get a lower score it pushes you to get better,” said Petersen.