Young Valley artists win honors

MAT-SU — A troika of high school artists took home awards in this year’s all-state high school art competition.

Over at Palmer High School, teacher Shelli Franckowiak has good reason to be proud of her student, Kirsten Swort, who did the best of any of the Valley entries with a third-place honor in the Multicultural division.

Her piece was titled “Walk a Mile” and is a pair of mukluks constructed with beads, found objects and traditional materials. Franckowiak said the piece was an independent studio project Swort put together as part of the school’s International Baccalaureate Visual Arts course.

“This is the equivalent of the state tournament having our athletes compete,” Frackowiak said of the state art competition.

But in her time at Palmer, there hasn’t been anyone entering.

“This is the first year that Palmer High has had student interest in participating,” she said.

In her artist’s statement, Swort writes about the evolution of her art.

“In my earliest works, I attempted to define individuality,” she wrote. “Through the course of the year, my artwork changed to reveal more of my own individuality. Expressing my own experiences, history and everything that makes me who I am.”

Wasilla High School has a fourth-place winner with student Jessie Marman and her entry in the Mixed Media category titled “Mother of Pearl.”

Up in Houston, teacher Roxann Dayton is proud of her student Sienna Rodgers who won a sculpture-category fourth-place prize for her piece “Phoenix.”

“I was happy to place,” Dayton said. “The kids are always excited about being chosen to represent the school. They feel extremely honored.”

Rodgers said she was very happy.

“I was really impressed that I could make something that would get fourth place,” she said.

The piece was made with clay and decorated with fake flower petals. Rodgers said it was made as a class assignment called “Hawks on Parade.” Houston High’s mascot is the hawk. The class made pinch-pots and then flattened them into a bird shape.

As for the striking orange feathers, Rodgers said finding that material is what inspired her to go with a phoenix theme.

“I was just kind of walking around JoAnn Fabrics and I found these fake flowers and I thought they would be good to put on my hawk to make it a phoenix,” she said.

The phoenix, of course, is a mythological creature that dies in a fire and rises again from the ashes.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.