Grand Junction High School students, Celeste Gutentag, Jed Wilson and Alexis Rinaldi, received Silver and Gold Key Awards for their artwork submitted to the 2017 Scholastic Art Show.

Celeste Gutentag received a Gold Key Award for an acrylic painting called “Panic!”. The Gold Key Award is the first place award presented at the highly competitive Scholastic Art Show. Gold Keys are the artistic equivalent of a state championship.

“I didn’t really know what it meant because it was kind of like the first time I had ever done a painting and Mr. Henry just said ‘you should enter the piece’ and I was like ‘ok’,” Gutentag, junior, said. “I started getting into drawing and stuff a lot this year.”

Gutentag enjoys painting things she likes, and friends, so she decided to paint a picture of her friend in a filter.

Jed Wilson submitted a set of mugs to the art show, and also received a Gold Key Award.

“I wasn’t really expecting to get it and when I did it was really rewarding for how many hours of hard work I’ve put into ceramics,” Wilson, senior, said, “It’s been an accumulation of many, many hours of practice throwing on the wheel. It’s not something that I learned overnight.”

Wilson enjoys math and science, so he wanted to incorporate geometric shapes into his mugs. He did this by adding hard lines and angles.

Alexis Rinaldi received two Silver Key Awards (second place) for a sculpture called “Virgin Mary” and a photograph called “Wanderer”.

“Not a lot of people make it in to the show and so just to get in is pretty cool but to actually place is pretty awesome,” Rinaldi, senior, said.

All three artists were happy their hard work and time spent payed off.