CCA Announces 2023 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Regional Winners
Young artists and writers recognized for their original works by nationally renowned award.
American Vision Awards Nominee Arihant Jain from Mountain View, Condolences, Mixed Media on Paper.
San Francisco, CA—February 23, 2023—CCA has announced the regional award winners of the 2023 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Presented by the nonprofit organization the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the country’s longest-running and most prestigious scholarship and recognition program for creative students in grades 7–12. This year, which marks 100 years of the Awards, more than 100,000 teens from across the United States and Canada entered more than 300,000 works of art and writing.
Since the program’s founding in 1923, the Awards have fostered the creativity and talent of millions of students and include a distinguished list of alumni such as Tschabalala Self, Stephen King, Kay WalkingStick, Amanda Gorman, Charles White, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andy Warhol, all of whom received recognition in the Awards when they were teens.
From over 4,800 entries across six Bay Area counties, CCA is proud to award 352 Gold Keys to high school students who brought a distinctive and authentic voice and perspective, originality, and technical skill to their work. This is the first year that CCA has served as the Bay Area regional affiliate, representing Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties. These students will automatically be entered into the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and their work will be showcased at a pop-up exhibition and in person celebration at CCA on Sunday, March 26. Five of these students have also been nominated for the American Vision Award. Additionally, CCA acknowledges the 671 Silver Key winners and the 1,239 Honorable Mentions for their inspiring achievements. A list of award-winners can be found at cca.edu/scholastic-awards.
For Gold Key works of art and writing in the Awards’ 28 categories—including architecture, painting, flash fiction, poetry, printmaking, science fiction & fantasy, and more—the opportunities for recognition will continue when the works are considered for national honors, including additional opportunities such as scholarships and inclusion in the National Exhibition and Scholastic Awards Traveling Exhibition, the annual anthology of award-winning teen writing, and the annual catalogue of award-winning teen art. Poets who win national awards are considered for the National Student Poets Program, the nation’s highest honor for young poets presenting original work. National awards will be announced on March 22, 2023.
“As an art and design school, we aim to provide a platform to support pathways toward creative careers for our middle school and high school students,” says CCA Senior Director of Youth Programs and Continuing Education Dustin Smith, who also helped spearhead the Bay Area regional awards and was a participant jurist. “This is one way that we can really make that impact, by showcasing all of the great work happening across the Bay Area from our young artists.”
About the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are presented by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and are made possible through the generosity of Scholastic Inc., New York Life Foundation, The Maurice R. Robinson Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Command Companies, The Herb Block Foundation, The Jay Pritzker Foundation, Quad and The Windhover Foundation, BLICK Art Materials, National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Times, Don’t Hide It, Flaunt It, RBC Foundation USA, Morgan Stanley, AppleTV+, Lindenmeyr Book Publishing Papers, Garcia Family Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and numerous other individual, foundation, and corporate funders; and, for the National Student Poets Program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Hearthland Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and Academy of American Poets.
Visit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers for more information. Additional details about the Awards can be found in the Scholastic media room.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) is an ambitious art and design school that educates students to shape culture and society through the practice and critical study of art, architecture, design, and writing. Located in the design center of San Francisco, the college prepares students for lifelong creative work by cultivating innovation, community engagement, and social and environmental responsibility.
CCA recently unified its two campuses, bringing together its academic and residential programs in one vibrant urban neighborhood hub. CCA is in the construction phase of a new building designed by the award-winning architecture firm Studio Gang. This new building will create new adjacencies and interactions while inviting yet-to-be-discovered modes of making, teaching, and learning.
CCA offers 22 undergraduate and 11 graduate programs in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. CCA enrolls students from 41 countries and 43 states and is ranked among the top 25 most diverse colleges in the U.S.
CCA faculty are accomplished educators, academics, practitioners, and researchers with a breadth and depth of expertise that inspires students to take creative risks in the pursuit of purposeful work.
Noted alumni include the artists Nathan Oliveira, Jules de Balincourt, Robert Arneson, Robert Bechtle, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the Oscar-winning filmmaker Audrey Marrs; the illustrator Tomie de Paola; conceptual artists Hank Willis Thomas, David Ireland, and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas, Michael Vanderbyl, and Gary Hutton.