A Gold Medal Portfolio Award is the highest honor students 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, technical skill, and the emergence of a personal vision or voice. We’re celebrating twenty-two creative teens who received Gold Medal Portfolio Awards in 2022. These remarkable artists and writers will each receive a $10,000 scholarship.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling two of the 2022 Gold Medal Portfolio recipients. First up are Serene Almehmi and Gina Bae.

Serene Almehmi

I decided to coin my portfolio “The New Southern Gothic” while reading William Faulker’s “A Rose for Emily” in English class. Traditional Southern Gothic literature explores decay and despair. Characters are odd, a little off-kilter. The heart of true Southern Gothic is commentary on social issues, disguised by gruesome plots. The New Southern Gothic is dark and dreary, in its own right.

Places

POETRY

Serene Almehmi, Grade 12, Vestavia Hills High School, Vestavia, AL. Gold Medal Portfolio, Command Companies Writing Portfolio Award

Every place is mean, if you look in the heart of it,
every place and all its people, all its people and all their sons.
I was born in Weirton, West Virginia,
out by the steel mill,
where the muck greets the grass,
and the coal pours into the river.
West Virginia looks kind enough—
the people old and withered,
with clouded eyes and meth-teeth,
but they smile nonetheless.
West Virginia is ugly on the inside,
once you stare at the water long enough
to realize it is not clear.
Once you notice that every pretty mountain
comes to a sharp point.
Once you stay long enough to realize that
meth rots more than teeth.
I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee,
where every bird sings, be it a songbird or not,
under a sun that never sets,
that even warms in the winter.
The people of Memphis are a choir
and they murmur soul so pretty
at the gas stations and corner stores
that you cannot decipher a scream.
But it is somber music—
no matter how sweet it sounds.
To know Memphis is to love Memphis
and to leave it too.
Once you walk the streets
when the songbirds sleep.
Once you witness a day
that the Mississippi runs red.
Once you peak over the bluff
and see that it is no longer blue.
Every place is mean and worn, ugly and unforgiving,
once you know it well enough, once you meet the men that call it home.

Gina Bae

With my work, I express the hope that just as I learned more and grew as both an artist and a person in the creation of these pieces, we as a nation will continue to exercise our ability to grow and make America a safe, welcoming place for people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and gender identities.

Featured images: Gina Bae, Kung Flu (Digital Art) and In Our Family’s Shoes (Mixed Media). Grade 12, Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA. Gold Medal Portfolio, Alliance for Young Artists & Writers Art Portfolio Award

To see more Gold Medal Portfolio recipients, past and present, visit our Eyes on the Prize series.