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, skill, and the emergence of a personal vision or voice. These remarkable artists and writers will each receive a $12,500 scholarship.
For the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling the 2023 Gold Medal Portfolio recipients. First up are Taiwo Adebowale and Marceline Castrillon.
Taiwo Adebowale
My portfolio, Rosetta, is named after the grandmother of rock ‘n’ roll: Rosetta Tharpe. As a black queer singer/songwriter, she was ostracized by the gospel community for her unconventional style. She combined praises to God with secular pleasures. With her guitar, she combined the spiritual rhythm of gospel with the boisterous rhythm and blues. Although her style was frowned upon by the black religious community, she avoided the pressure of cramming herself into a box. Instead, she created a space where she thrived creatively and unapologetically. As a black queer writer, Rosetta’s experience resonates with me. Blackness is explored in a plethora of contemporary literature, but there are pressures that come with it. AAVE doesn’t conform to the societal view of literary prestige, so it’s deemed unprofessional or illiterate. The black body is politicized, even if it isn’t there for political reasons (ex. The Little Mermaid remake situation). I used to write characters as racially ambiguous as I could. I described them with “brown eyes,” “curly hair.” Nothing more, sometimes less. I didn’t feel like the world wasn’t ready to see my work. I felt like my work wasn’t good enough for the world. When I wrote about black identity, it was always objectified and questioned. Writing is a form of expression, but I felt like I wasn’t expressing myself right. However, when I tried to conform, I felt lost. I realized that I couldn’t put myself out there by suppressing my voice. Like Rosetta, after suffocating in boxes for so long, I created my own where I could thrive as a writer.
To Fit an I mage
POETRY
Taiwo Adebowale, Grade 12, George Washington Carver Center for Arts & Technology, Towson, MD. Jalynn Harris, Rebecca Mlinek, Norman Prentiss, Educators. Baltimore Office of Promotions & the Arts, Inc., Affiliate. Gold Medal Portfolio Award, The Harry and Betty Quadracci Writing Portfolio Award
People mistake the concave of my
pelvic bone as the word“
w om an” written in cursive.
The same way striped
cats have “M” on their
foreheads.
Even when I walk around
withnothing
But a porcelain skeleton
My black skin,
filleted against my boneslike
tattered fabric,
I have a name body doesn’t know.
It doesn’t fit me
right.
I’ve been taught to feed the mouths
of men with a silver spoon
before I feed my
own mouth.
I’ve been taught to bend
down and kneel when i grab a coke
for my father, but
Bread, rice,and
peanut butter
Don’t go down my
thighs right.
They don’tturn my breasts
into mountainous heaps
of flesh to fill the void my
wide shoulders create.
My bones are too dense with
marrow, my slim is
a facade.
Barely gained a few pounds over
the past few years, but my BMI was
at the 86th percentile
at the age of 12.
Grew an inch and I’m healthy
now, despite the monthly
period bloat.
I should be happy
I’m lucky enough to walk in half of
femininity’s image
I’m lucky enough
To have skin
to offer, to starve.
But I still have the
piece That looks like
a man.
I still cover my big shoulders
With oversized shirts and jackets
draping over them.
I still wish I could file
My dense marrowthin.
I don’t feel like the n ame
Branded onto
my pelvic bone.
I feelas
though I failed
my mission
Etched onto
My pelvic
bones.
I stopped praying to femininity
It was futileto worship her,
anyway.
I stopped offeringmy skin.
I stopped wishingmy skin
was lighter.
I stopped fasting
You can’t changewhat’s
already beautiful.
I don’t use it in any oft he rituals,
Any of thes ubliminals that claim
they’ll make me b eautiful.
I don’t have tohypnotize myself
To fit an image Iwasn’t born to
fit.
Body doesn’t knowb eautiful,
Body knows working good.
Body wakes up with
no expectations But a hand
thatwill nourish it.
I walk in a skin
I call not a curse,
but my own.
I say “you’re mine”
W oman doesn’t
have to be you.
You are already
A gift.
Marceline Castrillon
The body of work [in my portfolio] takes elements from the fairy tales of Swan Lake and the Ugly Duckling to tell my story. A celebration not only of the joy I’ve been able to find in my life but the arduous journey it took to find it. My struggles to reconcile my Latinx heritage and my trans identity. I meant for my work to be intimate and expansive, a connection between a melodic past and a chaotic future. The images themselves are ones of chaos and contortions, further defined by the unsettling visuals of morphing bodies suspended in space. This is intentionally counteracted by the use of ballet which further connects to my overarching theme of a Swan while also serving to be more palatable to a larger audience . . . Music has always served as THE starting point for my creative flow; the lyrics, musical composition, etc. allow me to create different worlds, people, and stories that I try to tell in my works of art.
Featured image: Marceline Castrillon, Fugaces, Photography. Grade 12, Wakefield High School, Arlington, VA. Jina Davidson, Educator; Arlington County Public Schools, Affiliate. Gold Medal Portfolio, The Harry and Betty Quadracci Art Portfolio
To see more Gold Medal Portfolio recipients, past and present, visit our Eyes on the Prize series.