Julian Middle School student Paloma Turner was the proud winner of Artsonia’s Artist of the Week contest, a voting competition held on Artsonia.com, the world’s largest collection of student art portfolios exhibiting over 80 million pieces of student art.
Turner received more than 1,000 online votes in February for her winning art titled, "Brad Pit." She is glad to be in art class, so she can feed off the creativity of her peers.
“I like being around people when I make art, because I can talk with them and get inspired by their artworks,” Turner said. “I also like trying new techniques and ways to make things.”
When asked how she felt when she found out she won Artist of the Week, Turner said, “I felt really proud and accomplished.”
Turner’s teacher, Phillip Swistowicz has been teaching art for more than ten years. Swistowicz maintains a "choice-based" art room.
“Students are given mini-lessons based on skills and techniques,” Swistowicz said. “All of their summative projects are designed individually. Students can take their own spin on the assignment. The student artist really shines through in the resulting work.”
Swistowicz is honored to have one of his student’s recognized for their artistic achievement.
“I could not be more proud of this student for having their work recognized,” Swistowicz said. “It is a true testament to their abilities, as well as the joy they have for their craft.”
Swistowicz is one of the thousands of art teachers from over 100 countries around the world who use Artsonia to showcase their student art, crowdsource lesson plans and help fundraise for their classrooms. Artsonia lets family and friends of student artists create and purchase organic keepsakes from the student art, and then gives back 20 percent of all revenue to the local art classroom.
Artsonia developed Artist of the Week 10 years ago as a way to encourage teachers to submit student artwork and engage the school and community to vote on and recognize students for their achievements. Every week, Artsonia selects 12 random submissions in each of four different age groups (PreK-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12) from artwork submitted the previous week. Voting is then open to the public for several days before the winner is announced.
Blick Art Materials generously donates a $100 gift certificate to the winning school and an individual $50 gift certificate to the student artist.
“Our mission at Artsonia is to bring communities together to celebrate children's artistic expressions,” said Jim Meyers, CEO and co-founder of the company. “Artist of the week is a perfect way to get local schools, families and friends involved in the process of creating, recognizing and cherishing student art.”
For more information, visit artsonia.com.