With each passing year, students taking classes in Westside’s art department submit their works to Scholastics Art and Writing in hopes of winning a state award, then eventually a national award. This year, junior Jenny Solheim won not her first national gold award, but her second. She won her first national gold award her freshman year, and has done it once again this year. The winners at the national level get their artwork displayed with the other winners at a gallery in New York, and even get to accept their award on stage at Carnegie Hall in June.

When Solheim first won her freshman year, she was excited because she didn’t expect it. This year, Solheim was less surprised, but still full of gratitude and joy when she found out she had won.

Westside art instructor Shawn Blevins explains the varying criteria of Scholastics when it comes to submissions, and how Solheim’s submission stacked up.

“As a freshman she [Solheim] won a national gold, so I thought hers had a pretty good chance technically-wise because it’s so well done that she had a good chance of competing,” Blevins said. “Then again, at the national level, you never know what they [Scholastics] are looking for. They are looking for that really good mix of creativity and technical skill, and that they caught the student’s voice. You never know what they’re going to choose.”

Concerning her piece, which is a painting based off a photo of an old diner taken by Blevins, Solheim explains what she wants the viewers to get out of it.

“I like to do [paintings] in a realistic style, so when people look at it they think ‘That looks like the real thing,’ so I want it to be like that,” Solheim said. “I wanted [the winning piece] to have a feeling of being from the past. It’s a black and white picture so it looks like an old photograph.”

Although Solheim isn’t sure how big of a role art will play in her post-high school years, she still wants art to be a part of her life.

“I’m not sure if I’ll actually major in art in college, but I want to go to a college that has a good art program because I’ll probably still want to take some art classes there,” Solheim said.

Solheim’s two national awards are something more than a stroke of genius. Some of her other paintings are below, and the winning painting is at the top of the article.