Artists statebound in VASE

By Gisselle Washington |

Five students will advance to the State Visual Arts Scholastic Event (VASE) at San Marcos High School on April 28. The five state qualifying medals for top honors went to Megan Adams, Graciela Herrera, Quyen Nguyen, Chloe Ramirez, and Juleigh Perez for their compositions that competed at the region 20 area competition at Marshall High School February 24.

“It wasn’t nearly as nerve-wracking but like it was definitely a good experience,” Graciela Herrera said. “I honestly didn’t expect going to state. It was a really cool thing, like I wasn’t expecting it.”

The students were among the 1,687 entries in region 20 at Marshall High School and represented five from the total 130 selected in the region.

“I think the competition is growing so much that it may need a bigger venue,” Art teacher S’Lena Hinojosa said.

Megan Adams, a student in Ms. Hinojosa’s Art I class, was interviewed and her artwork was judged by certified, professional TAEA jurors.

“I knew about the competition and I just really tried to think of something that would be inspiring to submit in the competition,” Megan Adams said. “It was interesting. There was a lot of people there and the judges were really nice.”

Judges voted once for each artwork in a division that the wanted to advance. The artworks that received the majority votes from all the judges advanced to state VASE.

“I think the ones that were chosen to go to state were well deserving,” Hinojosa said. “They worked really hard on their works and it was really neat to see the variety in the works that were chosen.”

NEISD had the most students of any other district with 81 submitted pieces advancing to state from the region 20 competition.

“I’m excited,” Adams said. “It’s gonna be fun to just see how far my art has made it.”