RENO – Several dozen winners of the northern Nevada regional competition for the Scholastic Art Awards of 2010 and their families converged on the Nevada Museum of Art Saturday for a ceremony and reception. Museum representatives presented awards to students from more than 20 local middle and high schools, marking the opening of the Scholastic Art Awards of 2010 exhibition featured at the museum, which runs through April 3. 

A national program established 86 years ago, the Scholastic Art Awards serves 13 counties in northern Nevada, inviting students to compete for awards and scholarships. This year also marks the region’s first Scholastic Writing Awards ceremony, presented by the Sierra Arts Foundation. 

Jennifer Kim, a junior at Reed High School, won a Gold Key award for her painting “Agonize.” The painting is a self-portrait in which she is depicted as a monochromatic figure among colorful fish. She appears to be sitting on a hillside with the fish flopping around her, but Kim said the scene is underwater. 

“In this painting I am different than others,” she said of the meaning behind her work. “I want other people to compare me to the fishes.” 

Kim said she has been painting for three years and that her passion started because her mind wandered. 

“I really didn’t want to study in school so I started scribbling in notebooks and people told me I was good,” she young artist said. 

She said art comes naturally for her and that she keeps mostly pictures of people up in her room for inspiration, though she will draw just about anything. 

“I draw everything. If I see something, I draw it,” she said. “If I see a model, I draw it. If I see a dog running, I want to draw it. Everything I see in front of me I want to draw.” 

Around the corner in the gallery was a wall of photographs taken by students. McQueen High sophomore Isabella Jacobs won an award for her image, titled “Guarded Steps.” She took the picture of her 18-year-old sister carrying an umbrella and delicately walking across a fallen log. They were in a wooded area near where Jacobs’ father lives in Australia and she was moved to capture the scene. 

“The trees were so beautiful, especially the eucalyptus, I really wanted to take a picture with them,” Jacobs said. “So I had her put on a dress and heels and the log inspired me to have her walk on it. 

“My surroundings inspire me to take pictures,” she continued. “They really influence me.”

Her picture won a Gold Key award and also was selected in another contest to be part of a show at Carnegie Hall in New York. Her talent is shining through despite the fact that she is still working with a small point-and-shoot camera, but she hopes to save up and buy a more sophisticated camera soon. 

She is not sure if photography will turn into a career, but “if not, it can always be a hobby,” she said. 

Nancy Sarthworth, an art teacher at Bishop Manogue, came to Saturday’s reception to support the five young artists from her school who won awards. She said art serves many useful purposes for teens, such as teaching them to focus, providing a stress release, teaching self-awareness and ultimately receiving praise for good work. She said she has seen students’ grades improve from the improved ability to concentrate that art teaches them and they become much more confident as a result. 

“When you get into the zone from the focus you learn here you could drop a bomb next to them and it wouldn’t phase them,” she said. 

One of Sarthworth’s former students, Bishop Manogue junior Nick Francis, talked about his crescent moon-shaped teapot called “Liquid Luminescence” when he said, “I can’t think in terms of reality in when it comes to art.” Francis said he is the world’s worst drawer and that he normally creates his ceramics before drawing them out -- opposite of what his teachers tell him to do. 

“It’s cool to have thought about it and see it here in front of me,” he said of his prize-winning piece. 

For more about this and other museum exhibits, visit www.nevadaart.org.