On Tuesday, April 23, the Young Artists and Authors Showcase, sponsored by the Santa Barbara Sister Cities Board and Children’s Creative Project, presented artwork from students across Santa Barbara County high schools. The event was directed by Kelly Mitchell, an education associate with Santa Barbara County, who introduced the showcase to teachers and staff in the region.
The theme for this year’s art showcase was “ClimateScape: Resilient Cities for Tomorrow’s Climate.” Students had to create art that offered ideas to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.
The showcase also presented three different submission categories: Writing/Poetry, Classic Art, and Digital Art/Photography. This gave students the opportunity to express their art and ideas in a way unique to themselves. However, the majority of submissions presented in the showcase were a mix of the digital or classic arts and photography.
At the event, prizes were awarded to students whose artwork best depicted the showcase’s theme based on creativity, composition, and theme interpretation. All students received certificates for participation, and the first, second, and third place winners earned cash rewards.
In addition to that, first place winners’ artwork will be sent to Sister Cities International to compete with national and international entries. The reason for this international connection between countries around the world is to express the mission of SCI through original artwork, literature, and photography.
Four Dos Pueblos Students were winners of the showcase, with first place award to Joselyn Vazquez Gonzalez (9), second place award to Ismael Olea (9), and two third place awards to Sydney Masterson (9) and Camila Ronchietto (9). These winners are students in Mrs. Domingues’s digital art class.
Originally, the idea of entering the art show was tied into a class project for Domingues’s class, where she assigned her students to create surreal art. As students were engaged in the making of their surreal art, Domingues was able to identify which pieces she felt contributed the most to the showcase’s theme.
“When getting the project, our teacher told us that we also had the theme from the art competition,” said third place winner Sydney Masterson. “ [The theme] kind of inspired me, but I feel like Mrs. Domingues was really caring, and she recommended certain students that they should really pursue [the competition] and submit the [artwork] she thought did really well.”
As for how her art piece represented the “resilient city against tomorrow’s climate” theme, Masterson wanted to express how humanity itself is also a shared part of life in the natural world.
“For mine, I tried to represent the theme by combining, like, literal nature with, like, a home and our life to show that we’re one with nature and that we have to work harmoniously with it,” Masterson said.
The showcase also gave participants a way to think about what elements or ideas of their art they wish were implemented into today’s societies. Some art pieces depicted cities surrounded by nature, where other projects portrayed realities where society implemented itself into the environment.
“I feel like in my art, it was kinda depicting this fantasy idea of perfect harmony with nature,” Masterson said. “But I wish that we could find ways to bring that into real life by making homes and cities out of natural products and keeping everything very clean.”
