Dead Fish and Poems and Lots of Awards

Dead Fish From Life, oil on canvas. Brian Kim ’16

Each year, dozens of Milton students earn honors for their creative work—poems, short stories, paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures. Earlier this month, more than 35 students received recognition from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the program identifies students with exceptional artistic and literary talent and presents opportunities for recognition, exhibition, publication and scholarships. Established in 1923, Scholastic is the largest and longest-running program of its kind. Students across America submitted nearly 320,000 original works this year, across 29 categories of art and writing. Jurors—some of the foremost leaders in the visual and literary arts—look for works that exemplify originality, technical skill, and the emergence of personal voice or vision.

Student award winners are in good company. The program’s alumni include artists Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Cy Twombly, Robert Indiana, Kay WalkingStick, and John Baldessari; writers Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Bernard Malamud, Myla Goldberg, and Joyce Carol Oates; photographer Richard Avedon; actors Robert Redford, Alan Arkin, Lena Dunham, and John Lithgow; fashion designer Zac Posen; and filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Ken Burns, and Richard Linklater.

Below is a list of this year’s regional award winners.