The National Parent Teacher Association Reflections Art Contest is currently accepting entries from all students across the country to submit artwork exploring this year’s theme, “I Belong!” with entries due on Oct. 23.
Each year, the 50-year-old contest has a theme chosen by any student from elementary to high school, and students in the same grades can create and submit art in six categories — music composition, dance choreography, film production, photography, visual arts and literature.
“It's just an amazing way to share your thoughts and ideas, if words don't come as naturally to you,” previous award-winner and sophomore Carmen Carroll said.
SM East is one of the four high schools in the district participating this year. Students can submit their artworks to East PTA Reflections Chair Dee Wright in the office for a chance to win.
The first-place winners from each local school move on to be judged at the district level. Judges then place district winners based on the Award of Excellence, which is first place, Award of Merit and an Honorable Mention. The District Award of Excellence winners then advance to the state level, where judges choose around 850 first-place winners at state to move on to nationals, where there are over 200 winners.
For the district-level Award of Excellence winners, the PTA will hold an awards ceremony at the Center for Academic Achievement in front of the SMSD Board of Education, where the winners will receive a medal, certificate and a journal — a difference from prior years when they only gave out a certificate.
“It's a beautiful ceremony, and I'm very proud of it,” Wright said. “And I was brought in to improve the program, and I hope that it has [improved].”
Since former district chair Lori Stanziola left last year, Wright serves as the interim district chair until she can find a new community member or parent interested in the arts to keep the program going.
Each year, the contest has given Carroll the opportunity to express herself through the different themes. This year, Carroll has ideas for an art piece — black and white pencil drawing displaying her and others’ thoughts about her — based on her feeling of unbelonging during previous Reflections award ceremonies.
“I know this is where I should be, or I know this is where I'm supposed to be, but in my mind, I'm like, ‘Should I be here?’” Carroll said. “‘What do the people around me think? Am I qualified to be here?’”
Sophomore Chloe Caldwell also plans to enter the contest, but she’ll be focused more on the community aspect of the theme. She has ideas for a sculpture of the Earth with people holding hands to create a sense of belonging.
“A big part of belonging is like human connection and having friends,” Caldwell said. “So I think in order to belong, you need to have people to belong to.”
While everyone has their own interpretation of the theme, the National PTA uses this year’s theme as a way for families to discuss what it means to belong and why belonging is important, according to the National PTA.
“You just realize how everyone can interpret the theme differently, and how everyone has their own troubles and their own thoughts going on,” said arts ambassador for the SM Council PTA and East alumni Campbell Wood. “But everyone can find a way to look at a theme and see themselves in [it]. And I think that's the beautiful thing about the arts.”
After entering the writing category for the Reflections contest every year from middle to high school, Wood continues to make promotional videos as a PTA ambassador about how the contest impacted her life.
“I think it reminds me, being an ambassador, how grateful I am for having the writing contest, and how much good [it] did in my life,” Wood said. “[It’s] truly, probably the reason I am pursuing writing and why I have fallen so far in love with poetry.”
In addition to asking Wood to make promotional videos, Wright has sent information to art teachers and set up a table at lunches to advertise the contest, hoping to see participation increase from an average of five East entries each year.
Despite the low participation and having her last child graduate East six years ago, she continues as the PTA Reflections chair because of her passion for the arts and their impact on students, like Wood.
“[The contest was] this huge outlet in my life, and it's just made me a better person and more grounded in who I am and my relationships with others and how I view the world,” Wood said. “And I think I wouldn't have had that without these contests.”
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