Students win awards in national art and writing contest

Digging dandelions from her lawn at her parents’ request, freshman Yvonne Ye cautiously holds each tuft of seeds.

“You have to be careful so you don’t accidentally knock some seeds back onto the lawn,” Ye said. Otherwise, she will have to pull out the pesky plants all over again next year.

Unfortunately, after 30 minutes of labor, Ye discovers one dandelion that has already lost half its head. She knows exactly what this means.

“I just decided, ‘What the heck,’ and I blew that one,” Ye recalls.

Little did she know, this experience would inspire a poem, “Dandelion Wish,” which she would include in a collection worthy of a Regional Gold Key in the 2012 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Junior Sophia Zhu inspired not among dandelions but in her stuffy SAT preparation class, also achieved this award for her colored pencil drawing.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards has recognized young creative thinkers since 1923; its annual contest begins on the regional level and awards Gold Keys to the top 7 to 10 percent of submissions, which go on to compete nationally.

Zhu found inspiration for “Anorexia,” the piece she submitted, through her hunger during a 7 to 9 p.m. SAT class. The idea came to her when she noticed that the water bottle in front of her resembled a person, she said.

“Anorexia” depicts a dying fish in an unfilled water bottle. A running tap is right next to the water bottle; however, the bottle rests just out of reach.

“The fish is human life. The tap is food—the tap is life,” she said. “The water bottle just isn’t taking in that life, even though it’s right there. And so it’s going to die.”

According to Zhu, the symbolism in her piece carries the message.

“The stream of water is right there, but as a water bottle it can be extremely difficult to move there on [its] own, because bottles can’t move,” Zhu said. “And that is the thing with eating disorders, right? It can be extremely obvious to the people around them, but that doesn’t make it necessarily easy to fix.”

Hunger also inspired part of Ye’s submission; her winning collection of three poems included one titled “War and Piece (of a Cake).”

“I was hungry, and I started writing a deconstruction poem about cake,” Ye said. According to Ye, she then “started drawing metaphors with war and cake, and [the poem] just happened.”

Ye enjoys writing poetry because she often finds spewing her thoughts onto a page “therapeutic and calming.” She began creating poems in third grade.

“I started writing these tiny little quatrains, which were kind of just short, cute and pretty stupid,” Ye said. “But I loved doing those.”

Ye won her first Gold Key for poetry just four years later. Despite her talent, however, she does not plan to make writing a career.

“I’m definitely interested in English, but I don’t think I want to make [writing] a profession,” Ye said. “When I get inspiration, I just get on my laptop and start writing. It’s not really a constant thing. It’s more of a creative emotional outlet.”

Zhu shares similar feelings toward art.

“I have fun doing [art], and it’s great stress relief, but I honestly do not know if I wish to continue pursuing [it] when I grow up,” Zhu said. “If I had to do it every day, it might just get boring.”