Published On: April 3rd, 2016By

Alliance for Young Artists & Writers Names 2 AISD Students National Silver Key Winners

Award recipients join a legacy of celebrated individuals including Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly.
Carver-HS-Gold-Key-Cynthia-Coronado-Omni-Erudite-1

“Omni-erudite” by Cynthia Coronado

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers (the Alliance) announced the national 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards recipients.

The Awards recognizes creative teens in grades 7-12. It is the nation’s longest-running, most prestigious recognition program.

A record-breaking 320,000 works of art and writing were submitted for adjudication at the regional level.

The Awards’ 29 categories include poetry, photography and sculpture. Other categories include editorial cartoons, video game design and more.

This year, 16 high school seniors received the Gold Medal Portfolio. This is the program’s highest national honor that includes a $10,000 scholarship. Each year, the Alliance awards more than $250,000 in scholarships to top Awards recipients and their educators.

The Alliance also partners with art institutes, colleges and universities. They earmark scholarships for college-bound Scholastic Awards recipients.


Only the top 1 percent of students’ work earned recognition at the national level.


Since the program’s founding in 1923, the Awards have fostered the creativity and talent of millions of students, including renowned alumni who have gone on to become leaders in their fields, including Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Philip Pearlstein, Sylvia Plath and Robert Redford. More recently, Stephen King, Richard Linklater, Zac Posen, and Lena Dunham received Scholastic Art & Writing Awards when they were teens. This year, the renowned filmmaker and documentarian Ken Burns will receive the Alumni Achievement Award.

Plummer-MD-Gold-Key-Lionel-Green-Artwork-The-Stare-1

“The Stare” by Lionel Green

AISD National Silver Key Winners

Carver High School
Student: Cynthia Coronado
Teacher: Laura Luna

Plummer Middle School
Student: Lionel Green
Teacher: Tiffany Moroney

Panels of creative professionals identified the[icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards recipients.

The program has three judging criteria for all art and writing submissions. The judges look for originality, technical skill and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Student works are first [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]adjudicated regionallyThe more than 100 local Affiliates of the Alliance celebrated regional Award recipients. Individuals got to see Regional recipients’ work at local exhibitions and ceremonies.


The Awardees are considered the most talented young artists and writers in the nation.


Virginia McEnerney lauds the students’ work. She is executive director of the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. It is the nonprofit organization that presents the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

scholastic-art-and-writing-awardsWe are always astonished by the sheer energy and ingenuity of the work that students produce,” said McEnerney. “They are brave to put it into the world for feedback from arts professionals.

“We hear from Alumni of the program every single day. They say that receiving a Scholastic Award is life-changing. It is a thrill to give that opportunity to talented students from across the country.”

The Alliance will honor National Gold Medalists, American Visions and Voices Medalists, Silver Medal with Distinction and sponsored Awards recipients at the National Ceremony. These recipients will head to New York City in June. Silver Medalists will receive their medals and certificates by mail.

National Celebration Events

[ul class=”list list-search”] [li]June 2: The Gold Portfolio and Gold Medal students will be honored at Carnegie Hall. Ken Burns will make appearances. The award-winning filmmaker and documentarian will receive the Alumni Achievement Award this year.[/li] [li]June 2-12: Art.Write.Now.2016 National Exhibition … More than 1,000 of the top Scholastic Art & Writing Awards visual and literary works will be on display. The public will view the works at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design at The New School and Pratt Institute’s Pratt Manhattan Gallery.[/li][/ul]

Congratulations!



Aldine ISD students have received national American Visions Awards. In 2015, [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]José Gutiérrez from Davis HS won the Award for his digital artwork “Line Up.”
Nimitz High student [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]Jazzman Washington’s “Dragon Mask” won the American Vision Award in 2014.
Sponsors who provide fund to support and produce the Awards include The Alliance is grateful for its generous sponsors, who provide funds to support and produce the National Scholastic Awards: Scholastic Inc., The Maurice R. Robinson Fund, Command Web Offset Co., The New York Times, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, The National Endowment for the Arts, Blick Art Materials & Utrecht Art Supplies, The Herb Block Foundation, RBC Capital Markets, Neiman Marcus, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Golden Artist Colors, The Gedenk Movement; numerous other individual, foundation, and corporate funders; and, for the National Student Poets Program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

About the Author: Leticia Fehling

Director of Internal Communications