A Gold Medal Portfolio Award is the highest honor teens can receive in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Jurors choose portfolios by high school seniors whose works best represent the Scholastic Awards’ judging criteria: originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal vision or voice. These remarkable artists and writers will each receive a $12,500 scholarship.
Luke Haring
Roome Fund Portfolio Award
Lexington, OH
All of the pieces that I have submitted have special elements to them, which make them not only unique but also more than just a wheel-thrown vessel. These pieces all have an altered element that also makes them have a dynamic and unusual feel that most traditional pieces do not have. I think that it is incorporating an element like this into one’s artwork that truly makes it an artwork opposed to just a project. Continuing to create new and unique designs and attempting to bring them to life has been a priority that has been paramount this semester, and I plan to do my best to do the same in the future.
View works from Symmetry Interrupted, Luke’s award-winning portfolio, via our online gallery.
Tika Gill
BR Printers Portfolio Award
Harrison City, PA
Ever since middle school, I’ve loved fanfiction. What started as a cringy, quirky hobby eventually blossomed into a love for reading and writing, so I wanted to dedicate my final Scholastic Awards piece to what got me here in the first place. For the pieces, I tried to take every aspect of fanfiction and mold them into different forms of writing, especially poetry, whether that be the way that fanfiction can suck you into even the weakest of story plots, to the stigmas associated with fanfiction. I find that many people are quick to write fanfiction off as a “lesser art,” or “teenage phase,” when some of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever read come from random fanfics I’ve found during late-night readings. I’ve also come to realize that the people who openly express their love for even the “cringiest” of things—like fanfiction—are also the same people who are openly able to express themselves, which is why, in recent years, I’ve decided to allow myself to enjoy whatever I want to enjoy without feeling ashamed. I want this portfolio to simply scream me, from the angst to the fluff and even niche references like the “fanfic writer curse.” Fanfiction is so much more than just “low quality fangirl writing,” it’s an entire community of writers and readers, and if it weren’t for this community, I would have never participated in the Scholastic Awards, let alone four times in a row! My message to anyone who reads this portfolio is to be yourself, let go of what others deem “cringe,” and shamelessly enjoy anything you want to enjoy!
View works from Fanfic, Tika’s award-winning portfolio, via our online gallery.
To see more Gold Medal Portfolio recipients, past and present, visit our Eyes on the Prize series.
Featured images: Luke Haring, Interval, Mutation, and Incision, Sculpture. Grade 12, Lexington High School, Lexington, OH. Austin Javurek, Educator; Columbus College of Art & Design, Affiliate. Gold Medal Portfolio, Roome Fund Portfolio Award