Millburn High School Art Students have won 53 awards in the 2023 Northern NJ Regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition. The competition is the nation's longest-running, largest and most prestigious recognition program for creative teenagers in the visual and literary arts in the United States. The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition is sponsored by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. The mission of the competition is to identify, motivate and validate the next generation of artists and writers. The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards receives hundreds of thousands of entries for art and writing from across the nation each year, and winning a Regional award is an extremely  prestigious achievement. The Regional Awards include the Gold Key, Silver Key and Honorable Mention in both the Individual category and the Senior Portfolio category, as well as specific individual categories.  

A panel of jurors, consisting of professional artists, photographers, designers, educators and curators, reviewed the works of art submitted by students in grades 7-12 from throughout the Northern New Jersey Region.  

The Scholastic Awards website explains that entries are selected for awards without knowledge of the student’s gender, age, ethnicity, or hometown by some of the foremost leaders in the visual and literary arts. Jurors look for works that exemplify the Awards’ core values: originality, technical skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision. As mentioned on the Scholastic Awards' website, "Since 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have recognized some of America’s most celebrated artists while they were teenagers, including: Andy Warhol, Zac Posen, Idelle Weber, Ken Burns, Luis Jiménez, and Kay WalkingStick." 

The art instructors at the Millburn High School encourage their students to participate in the Scholastic Art Awards competition as the experience offers the students an opportunity to gain recognition in a wide range of media and celebrates the students’ unique creative visions. Winning students represent the diversity of the art curriculum and include works in media such as printmaking, painting, drawing, digital arts, sculpture, crafts and photography. The High School Art Staff includes Kathleen Harte Gilsenan, Christina Benson Vos, Susan Bromirski, Katherine Reilly, Linda Kim and Jackie Hummer. 

Millburn Township has every reason to be extremely proud to count this year's winners among these esteemed Scholastic Awards alumni! The work of all of the winners will be on display at the Youth Art Month exhibit at Millburn High School, 462 Millburn Ave, Millburn, NJ, 07041, on March 22, 2023 from 6:30-8:00PM. 

Students who have won a Regional Gold Key award will also have their work on display in the Gold Key Regional Show, on March 4, 2023, at Gallery Aferro, 73 Market St., Newark, NJ 07102, www.aferro.org. Gold Key Awards are also considered for national-level recognition. National awards include Gold Award and Silver Award in both individual and senior portfolio categories. Students receiving a Gold National Award will be honored at a ceremony in New York City in the spring.