Opening Reception and Friday Trolley Hop
February 3rd 5 – 10pm

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing outstanding visual art and writing created by teenagers to a national audience, has launched the 2012 Scholastic Art Awards and will be on exhibit at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, February 3rd – 25th, 2012. 179 student Gold Key award-winning works of art are on display in this gallery.. The Awards offer early recognition for creative teenagers and art scholarship opportunities for graduating high school seniors. If a student receives a top Award (Gold Key) from the local Louisville Metropolitan Regional Art Awards, then he or she moves on to the national level.

Known nationally as the oldest art contest in the United States, the annual awards competition began locally in early January, as students, grades 7-12, in the Louisville Metropolitan region submitted works of art in a wide array of categories, including painting, sculpture, fashion, design, digital art and photography. The entries, submitted to the Jefferson County Public Schools Arts and Humanities Specialist, were evaluated by a panel of local jurors comprised of artists, art educators and arts professionals. Entries were eligible from all public, private and parochial school in thirteen surrounding counties.

Distinguished artists and writers who received an Art & Writing Award when they were in high school include Andy Warhol, Robert Redford, Sue Miller, Richard Avedon, Philip Pearlstein, Zac Posen, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Otterness, Robert Indiana, Sylvia Plath, John Lithgow, and Joyce Maynard. Since Scholastic founded the program in 1923, more than 13 million of America’s most talented teens have participated in the Awards, and 2.5 million have been recognized through exhibition and publication and have shared in more than $25 million in cash awards and college scholarships.