By Jason Emerson
Cazenovia High School senior Taylor McCullough has won a gold medal for photography at the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards — the first in CHS school history.
McCullough’s work of digital photography, “Red Nails,” received a Gold Key award at the regional level and went on to be judged nationally by a panel of creative-industry experts in New York City. The national awards were announced March 13.
National medalists will be recognized at the National Ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City on June 7.
McCullough’s piece, and the other national medalist art and writing winners from across the country, will be on display at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons School of Design at The New School from June 1 to 10.
The history of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is rich with notable alumni, of which McCullough is now part. The list includes artists like Andy Warhol and John Baldessari, whose work has influenced the course of art history worldwide, and writers like Sylvia Plath and Joyce Carol Oates, whose writing has changed contemporary literature.
Each year, the more than 100 visual arts and literary arts organizations across the country partner to bring the Scholastic Awards to local communities. Teens in grades 7 through –12 apply in 29 categories of art and writing. In 2018, students submitted nearly 350,000 works of art and writing to the Scholastic Awards.
Submissions are juried by luminaries in the visual and literary arts, some of whom are past award recipients. Panelists look for works that best exemplify originality, technical skill and the emergence of a personal voice or vision.
