ALL DAKOTA HIGH SCHOOL FINE ARTS EXHIBITION
With the majority of regular high school activities cancelled this year, the Dacotah Prairie Museum has converted its “All Dakota High School Fine Arts Exhibition” into a virtual art show/competition for any of the 16 schools that had registered for this event. Annually, this event spans two days the third week in April, with schools from both North and South Dakota, features professional artists that conduct hands-on workshops and judging seminars for about 125+ students. For the virtual event, the DPM hosted 5 out of the previously 16 registered schools. Art teachers sent photos of student artwork. Some were not able to get back into their school buildings to take pictures of student artwork and some hadn’t even finalized their selections yet, before schools shifted to online/remote learning.
Per the DPM staff: “We just couldn’t let this drop off without making an effort to offer some sort of normalcy for these art students - no commencement, no prom, no sports and no fine arts (concerts and art shows) events. It’s not going to be a very big showing, but we are still going to have our judges, via video conference, review and critique the student artwork just like they would if the students were there. We will award prizes but in a modified way from our usual presentation.”
Schools that participated: Mt. Vernon, Mitchell, Northwestern, Ipswich and Aberdeen Central, all from South Dakota, no North Dakota teams were able to participate.
The judges are Jay Hopkins of Aberdeen, SD, an artist and art instructor at Northern State University and Presentation College, and Sabrina Hartung of Jamestown, ND, an artist and journalist. The judges reviewed all of the student artwork in a marathon video conference and awarded "Best in Show" along with 10 media category winners (painting, drawing, 3D, etc) on Thursday, April 23. Here is the list of winners:
“Just Hangin'”, Drex Martinek, Mitchell, Best in 3D Sculpture
“Flower Bank”, Janesa VandenHoek, Mitchell, Best in Ceramics/Pottery
“Metamorphosis”, Briana Altmaier, Aberdeen Central, Best in Drawing
“Native Glory”, Kaitlyn Sandland, Mt. Vernon, Best in Fiber
“New Dawn”, Brittney Robideau, Mitchell, Best in Graphic Design
“Steam Punk”, Eric Nelson, Northwestern, Best in Mixed Media
“One Summer Night”, Drew Bellikka, Aberdeen Central, Best in Painting
“There's No Place Like Home”, Miranda Thorson, Northwestern, Best in Pastel, Oil Pastel or Colored Pencil:
“Reflections”, Joclyn Haven, Northwestern, Best in Photography
“Wilderness”, Cassidy Frericks, Northwestern, Best in Printmaking
Best in Show:
“There's No Place Like Home”, Miranda Thorson, Northwestern