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HSPVA Junior Scholarship Show

By Ariya Selvakumar, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, School Buzz Editor | March 27, 2018

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Megane Lin and Kasidy Grant, two sophomore visual artists, discuss the artwork of Amy Vaughan while critiquing the show in an Art Criticism class.

Of the many art shows our HSPVA gallery sees, one annual show following a slightly different criteria stands out. This is the junior scholarship show, in which 11th grade visual artists have the chance to participate in a chance to be granted a scholarship to pre-college programs and summer opportunities at schools around the nation.

Upon choosing to participate, juniors organize a body of work of about 10-20 art pieces that they wish to show. Each junior is then given a section of the school gallery from floor to ceiling and is able to organize their pieces here as they please. After the show is hung, the art department chooses a group of judges and then each one juries the show.

The 2018 Junior Scholarship Show

The group consists of successful artists and art influences from the Houston community, teachers or admin from HSPVA, and other special guests and these people all get to walk through the gallery and essentially decide which students would gain the most from being given the scholarship. Our judges of the show often complain how they dislike having to pick between such strong bodies of work from all of the students; however, they are more than happy to be able to grant a young artist this valuable opportunity to take part in a program of their choice.

Juniors who participate also get to hear critiques of their pieces from the special guest artists who come in. This year we had 15 juniors participate, all gaining some sort of feedback and one on one advice from these influential individuals during the show. And although I’m sure most wished to win the scholarship, no matter the result, all 15 gained some valuable insight about their work and how they can even further improve their craft. Juniors who contributed their work into the show and took part in the experience this year were Louis Broussard, Calista Garcia, Ana Gaspar, Valerie Gonzalez, Chelsey Hinojosa, Ryan Horn-Clegg, Shayla Ibarra, Marissa Kapp, Heidi Li, Renee Peters, Zane Randall, Claudia Rojas, Amy Vaughan, Lauren Warner and Cindy Xia.