Art Students Awarded State's Highest Visual Art Distinction

Posted Date: 06/03/2020

December 1, 2017—Two Amarillo ISD students have earned the state’s highest award for Texas visual art students. Karime Gomez of Palo Duro High School and Brooklyn Kennedy from Amarillo High School received the coveted Gold Seal Award.

The prestigious Texas Art Education Association (TAEA) Gold Seal distinction is awarded to only the top 150 works of art from the state high school Visual Art Scholastic Event (VASE) competition, according to an award announcement.

The VASE process requires students to write about their work. “The purpose was to illustrate my beautiful niece and her mischievous, yet innocent smile,” Gomez wrote. “She wants to be a model when she grows up, so I decided to help her along.”

Kennedy said she was influenced by one of the most well-known of artists, who also became Amarillo ISD’s very first art teacher in the early 1900s. “I was influenced by Georgia O’Keeffe’s work for her up-close and still subjects that she seemed to add life and meaning through color and placement,” Kennedy reflected.

More than 36,000 artworks were entered at the 2017 VASE competition, starting at the regional level, according to the announcement. The winning artwork was exhibited at several state venues from late April until final exhibition in November.