Ambitious students from all artistic backgrounds poured into the cafeteria of Georgetown High School early morning on Saturday, March 1, ready to show off their art to the jurors and to socialize with friends with similar artistic interests. Visual Art Scholastic Event (VASE), a regional art competition, joined young artists, family, and art teachers together, uniting them through the spirit of artistic self-expression. 

During this annual event, artists were given the opportunity to share what makes them unique by revealing their long-awaited art pieces in scheduled interviews with jurors. The jurors then scored the student from a scale of one to four. The artworks that received fours were carefully placed in the gym, which was transformed into an art gallery that parents, students, and teachers flooded straight towards, in order to see which art pieces were state-eligible. 

“I encourage [students] to create whatever they want instead of choosing an art project they made in my class that was directed by me,” Art Teacher Anthony Garza said. “I prefer students to be their own individuals and make their own artwork.” 

Although eager to express their intentions behind their art, students returning to VASE experienced an oddity in the schedule of the day that prolonged the competition. Their long awaited interviews suffered delays, prompting artists to sit outside their assigned room from mere minutes to long hours.

“Last year, [interview delays] also happened and my interview was delayed an hour and 30 minutes,” Sahana Sakthivelmoorthy ‘26 said. “This year’s [interview delays] weren’t too bad, but it was still really bad because some people in my line said they’ve been waiting for hours and now they just went later in the day. I feel like they should have some kind of better organization process [of the interview times]. I know judges have to have a break, but I think they should have more volunteers in general.”

Contestants were required to answer deep, analytical questions regarding the process that went into creating their artwork. Some of these questions, however, left students heavily pondering about every detail their artwork harnessed.

“I think the most difficult question [I] had to answer was, ‘what’s your least favorite part about [the art]?’ and I chose the contrast that my wolf had between the flowers in my drawing. I didn’t feel like I put enough into the contrast but I’m still proud of [the piece],” Trish Trang ‘26 said.

Themes of childhood nostalgia, and reminiscing of memories were prominent, as students were inspired to create artworks that reflect a window to the past. With depictions of children playing, cloud shapes in the sky, and fairy-tale creature drawings, this theme captured the imagination of artists.

“I constantly refer back to my childhood and think about it a lot,” Sydney Daigle ‘26 said. “I wanted to portray that in my art. To emphasize my message of some childhood memories being forgettable, I used a monochrome palette for the child’s face, and [in the background] I contrasted against the [grey-scale] kid by making colorful drawings that looked like a kid could have drawn them. To me it symbolizes [how easy] it is to forget [childhood memories] but [throughout] the passage of time, they’re preserved in you.”

Themes of over-analyzing one’s appearance and the nature of perfection were also explored at artworks submitted at VASE. Artists used strokes of colored pencil over soft paper and unique beauty products to produce this class of art.

“The themes of the artwork I submitted were based on perfectionism and how I view myself every morning, and I’m always critiquing how I look,” Sahana Suryanarayan ‘26 said. “In my piece, I kind of let loose not even a little by doing things I normally wouldn’t. I allowed myself to experience what actual teenagers should be like instead of putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect all the time. I named this piece ‘Stains’ because there were a lot of stains involved, including lipstick stains which I [exaggerated] by [applying] lipstick over colored pencil. The drawing is from a photo I took of myself.”

Other students honed their artistic skills in their VASE submissions through expressing their academic journeys throughout high school. Artists illustrated themes of academic stress and burnout by representing the mental spirals that occur in the mind of a student.

“The meaning of my artwork is kind of a reflection of my time in high school and how academic pressure really affected me while I was at Westwood,” Alessandra Ashford ‘25 said. “I made a painting using all my old school work, and wanted to make it look really chaotic and debilitating to try to make it feel as close to academic burnout as I could. I used acrylic paint and Faber-Castell. For the paper, I wanted to make something a little larger just so I could really maximize the use of mixed media.”

After many years of entering into this art competition, returning seniors made their final appearance at VASE count. By attending their last school-related art competition, some used this opportunity to create specific artworks as a last hurrah before they graduate and prepare to express themselves through their artwork in college.

“It’s kind of bittersweet because I’ve done this for three years for High School VASE, and I did two years in middle school Junior VASE, so [VASE] has been a pretty normal thing for me to do in my life,” Elena Francis ‘25 said. “I’ve always liked seeing the pieces that everyone does and seeing how there’s so many artists at our school that get to go to this sort of [event]. [My] piece [was] called ‘Front Lineman,’ that [draws parallels between] the feeling of going to college, and that nervous but exciting energy before going into battle.”