Area students recognized for arts achievements at Gold Key Program

ELYRIA — A passion for art can lead to all kinds of success, artist and retired teacher Joe Filipiak told a crowd of young artists Sunday at Lorain County Community College. In his keynote address for the Scholastic Awards Art Exhibition Gold Key Program, Filipiak shared from his experience as an educator and urged the high school and middle school students to carefully consider how art can be part of their future college and career plans. "The next ten years or less will set the course for you for the rest of your life, so let's do it right. You only get one shot at this thing," he said, encouraging students to choose a college with a mixture of young and experienced faculty and available technology rather than following friends or a significant other to school. "The only thing that's going to limit you is the amount of dreams and scope of the energy and thoughts that you are going to do in the future," Filipiak said. The students at the program had already showed a great deal of creative energy in being selected for Gold Key awards, a high honor from the Lorain County Region of the national Scholastic Art Awards Program. More than 1,300 pieces of art were submitted to the regional competition. In the end, 72 students from area schools took home Gold Keys: One from Amherst Steele High School, seven from Avon High School, six from Avon Middle School, six from Avon Lake High School, one from Columbia High School, five from Lake Ridge Academy, one from Lorain Southview Middle School, four from Midview High School, one from Midview Middle School, one from the North Ridgeville Academic Center, four from North Ridgeville High School, four from North Ridgeville High School, two from Open Door Christian School, six from Perkins High School, five from Sandusky High School, one from St. Jude Middle School, 13 from Vermilion High School and four from Western Reserve High School. Some students earned multiple Gold Keys for different pieces. The regional Gold Key-winning works will be juried in New York City in the spring. A panel of judges awarded "American Vision Awards" to their five favorite pieces in the show. Michelle Zhang, a senior at Lake Ridge Academy, took two of those awards for her lifelike paintings of people and outdoor scenes. She said the awards came as a surprise, but she is thankful her works are so well received, adding that she wants people viewing her paintings to relate to the characters and scenes depicted there. "Maybe some sense of nostalgia or at least some way that they can connect to it," she said. The other three American Vision Awards went to Kara Jones of Vermilion High School, Vivien Holop of Perkins High School and Zoie Jarem of Columbia High School. "I didn't believe it at first," Jarem said about the moment she learned the awards she had won. Her submissions included ceramics, glass and sculpture, including a sculpture of a dragon. She said she loves sculpting in her free time and hopes to make props for the theater in the future. A gallery of works submitted to the competition is on display in LCCC's Stocker Arts Center through Feb. 20. Stocker Arts Center Operations Coordinator Beth Bryan said it is the most popular show of the year, already drawing nearly 700 visitors. "People come from all over the community and outside the county to see specifically this show," she said. "People who don't come to anything else here come to see this show because they're so intrigued by the work that you (students) do." Contact Dylan Reynolds at (440) 329-7123 or dreynolds@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @drey1357.