Artfully inspired: Stillwater students will be recognized for achievement in arts

Every student has the capacity to be an artist. Every person is in someway a patron of the arts. There may be limitations on time and educational opportunities, but a local effort to spur inspiration and inclusion in arts has found growing success.

Anu Sukhdial, chair of the local PTA Reflections council, has been encouraged by the growth of arts education in Stillwater. Their goal was to get more involvement, and they achieved it with increasing enrollment in a national program that recognizes students in Visual Arts, Photography, Literature, Music Composition, Dance Choreography and Film and Video Production.

Sukhdial organized workshops through the Prairie Arts Center, where children could learn from professionals in the various fields.

“I got real artists and real photographers to come in and talk to the kids. ‘What makes a good photo. What’s good lighting? How do you compose a shot?’ Creative writing, and how do you compose a poem? For that case, I had OSU grad students come and lead the workshop,” she said. “For the Dance piece. I had people come from the OSU Dance company and talk about how to choreograph dance – contemporary, jazz, ballet – whatever you want to do. We really want to encourage kids of all abilities. There’s a category called ‘Special Artist’ for kids with special needs. It’s really all-inclusive.”

She said 160 Stillwater students entered the PTA Reflections Arts in Education contest this year. It will culminate in an awards assembly 5 p.m. Friday at the Stillwater Performing Arts Center. There local winners will be announced, and some will qualify for a state-level contest.

“I had judges from the community, artists, photographers, filmmakers come and judge these entries and decide which ones they think are good enough to advance to the state competition,” Sukhdial said. “So, we whittle it down from 160 to a smaller number and then on Friday, we’ll be recognizing all the participants and all the winners in the assembly. And, the students who won, their art will be showcased at the Stillwater High School PAC. Starting Monday, it will be up and running. If you enter the PAC, you’ll see art, you’ll see painting, you’ll see literature pieces. You’ll see a wide variety of things from kids who have won this year.”

Anyone attending one of the handful of concerts this week prior to the assembly will get a sneak peak. Others are encouraged to come to Friday’s program, which is open to the public. The guest speaker will be local author Alton Carter, who just recently published a children’s book, “The Boy Who Went to the Library.”

“He’s usually very involved with the schools and very passionate about writing and the arts, so he’s going to come and be kind of a guest speaker and give a 10-15 minutes presentation about his story,” Sukhdial said. “He has an inspiring story.”

Sukhdial said the goal was just to encourage participation, but Stillwater has also been fortunate to have several children advance to the national stage just within the last few years. This year’s theme was “Heroes Around Me.”

“A lot of kids wrote about teachers – especially with the teacher strike we had back in April,” Sukhdial. “A lot of kids wrote about their families. Their community – firefighters, police officers. Some people wrote about other more personal experiences. We had a lot of variety.”