When Wright City high schooler Ella Haynes discovered she had been awarded Best in Show at the Des Lee Art Festival, she was shocked.

Haynes was nominated to participate in a visual art workshop for the 2024 festival with a handful of other Wright City High School artists.

Haynes and the other contestants didn’t know the competition until the day of explains Jennifer Chizmar, the art teacher from Wright City High School

“Every year, I nominate a handful of people, and then they usually choose at least two of the half dozen people I nominate. Then those people go and get to meet students from other schools. Sometimes they work with other people, sometimes it’s independent. They’re given a theme and certain materials to work with on the festival day.”

For the competition Haynes participated in, students were given five hours to create a collage that represented the given theme “Before the Dawn.” Once finished, the creations would be placed on display at the festival in the fine arts gallery.

Although not very familiar with collages, Haynes was ready to take on the competition. “The collage took me the entire five hours we had to work. When the time stopped, I was the only person still working,” said Haynes.

Haynes explained how when the competition began, she immediately went to grab as much brown paper as she could to use before anyone else grabbed it.

“The prompt was before dawn, which made me think of which animals might be active in the morning.”

Haynes eventually decided to create a fawn. She also talks about her inspiration to create morning glories featured on the collage.