ArtEffects 2025 Spotlight Prize Awardees Highlighted

Submitted Story

5 months ago

Presenting the
2025 Spotlight Prize Awardees!

Twelfth grade student Claire Evans of Roger Bacon High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, was awarded the $1,000 Spotlight Prize-Large Format for her mixed-media artwork Mary Anning: The Fossilist, which honors Unsung Hero Mary Anning, an English paleontologist and fossil collector born in 1799. “I can relate to her love of discovery, as well as her experience fossil hunting with her family,” Evans writes about her choice of hero in her Impact Statement.

View “Mary Anning: The Fossilist”

Eden Weathers, an 11^th grade student at Harriton High School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, won the $1,000 Spotlight Prize-Sculpture/3D for the bronze crown they created in memory of ethnobotanist Dr. Isabella Aiona Abbott entitled Aliʻi of the Algae: Crown of the Sea. Weathers writes in their Impact Statement, “I chose bronze to convey both strength and elegance, hoping to reflect the grace of a woman who spent her life sharing her culture and protecting our oceans.”

View “Aliʻi of the Algae: Crown of the Sea”

Twelfth grade student April Truong of Poway High School in Poway, California, also found inspiration in Dr. Abbott. “To represent her life’s dedication to the field, I drew two versions of her: young and old,” writes Truong in her Impact Statement about her digital artwork Limu and Her Lady of the Sea, which won a $1,000 Spotlight Prize-Unsung Hero.

View “Limu and Her Lady of the Sea”

Three students selected Unsung Heroes from World War II as the inspiration for their $1,000 Spotlight Prize-Unsung Hero projects. Xinyue (Emily) Ren, an 11^th grade student at San Jose, California’s BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, made her mixed-media drawing, The Courage to Stand in Solidarity, in honor of Ralph Lazo. “His willingness to stand alongside those who were unjustly imprisoned, despite not being targeted himself, challenges me to step beyond my own silence and comfort,” she writes in her Impact Statement.

View “The Courage to Stand In Solidarity”

“I find his creativity and leadership inspirational,” writes ninth grade student Se-a (Lucy) Min from Seoul Scholars international in South Korea in her Impact Statement about Unsung Hero Andrew Jackson Higgins, the inspiration behind her painting, Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Higgins Boat.

View “Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Higgins Boat”

Elyn Tao, a 10^th grade student at Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts, explains the inspiration behind her award-winning oil painting, A Comet Through the Dark: The Silent Light of De Jongh in her Impact Statement: “Andrée De Jongh was a war hero and remains one today. I chose her because her courage doesn’t belong in the past, but continues to grow with each passing moment.”

View “A Comet Through the Dark: The Silent Light of De Jongh”

Ambassadors in Action!

Meet our 2024-2025 Ambassador Mindy Sizemore, Visual Arts Teacher at Spring Mills High School in Martinsburg, WV.

Each ARTEFFECT Ambassador culminates their visual arts online fellowship with a capstone project that brings the inspiring stories of the LMC Unsung Heroes into their classrooms and communities. As the yearlong program comes to its end, Mindy shared about her capstone project. Here is an excerpt from her narrative:

“My goal for this project was for students to see that they can be a hero. Whether they lean into their passions and change the world in a big way like the LMC Unsung Heroes or they simply care for others in their life, they have the ability right NOW to make a positive change in the world.”

Thank you to Mindy and the students at Spring Mills High School for your creativity and inspiring ARTEFFECT projects!

Congratulations to Mindy and her student, Isaiah Griffin (Grade 10) for being a finalist in the 2025 Competition! Isaiah’s project,Terry Fox, a graphite and colored pencil on paper drawing, focuses on Unsung Hero Terry Fox.