In The News: Two Newberg High School artists garner Gold Keys

Written by: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic 

VandenHoek now eligible for national awards

Four Newberg High School students earned recognition in the Scholastic Art competition, with two winning regional Gold Key awards that will make them eligible for national awards.

Junior Kiernen VandenHoek earned a Gold Key for the second time in three years, receiving the top honor this year for his drawing "Bleeding Through Broken."

Like most other things in America, the competition was new to senior Gwen Thomas, who was born and raised in Rwanda before moving to Newberg prior to her junior year when her parents finished up two decades of missionary work.

Thomas not only won a Gold Key for her painting "Elegance," which portrays an African woman, but also received a Silver Key for her painting "Mischievous" and honorable mention for two other pieces.

If that weren't enough, Thomas also won a Gold Key, a Silver Key and more honorable mentions for the portfolio she submitted in the Scholastic Writing Competition.

All of Thomas' work centered around her life in Africa in some way, with much of the writing focused on the difficulty of leaving the only home she had ever known.

"It was really emotionally moving, so I guess it was my reflection of that and I wanted my painting and artwork to be a reflection of how much I love Rwanda," Thomas said. "It was out of respect. My writing was about the mental process of transitioning and culture shock."

Thomas' Gold Key-winning writing entry was a series of three poems that addressed her gratitude for growing up in Rwanda, how strongly connected she felt to home and the effects that leaving had on her.

Her winning painting was based on a photograph of a woman she didn't know, but found quite beautiful. The original was quite dark and Thomas found it to be quite harsh, so she removed the "really painful red" background and changed the light.

"There was something about her and I wanted to show that in my painting, so I changed all the color tones and removed the background completely," Thomas said. "Everything in the painting was the feeling of relief and thankfulness and appreciation."

Thomas has impressed NHS art teacher Stashia Cabral with her drive and craftsmanship.

"She takes feedback incredibly well and asks for help when she needs it," Cabral said. "She does tons of research and comes up with these really great ideas. She is the model of a great student and researcher."

VandenHoek won a Gold Key and a national award as a freshmen, which made him eligible to enter a lottery to attend the national award ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

"There was definitely validation," VandenHoek said of going to New York. "That process led me to get a camera and now I'm working on photography. The experience was validating and I was also able to do more."

The junior, who intends to take a year off after high school to focus on art before possibly attending art school, also won a Silver Key last year.

"He works mostly with dry mediums like colored pencil and graphite and ballpoint pen," Cabral said. "He is super creative and incredibly meticulous. He has an eye for detail that is out of this world."

Senior Chandler Everett, who won a Gold Key last year, received an honorable mention this year for his drawing, "Grasping," which portrays a blindfolded man reaching forward into a seemingly void space.

"I just wanted to do something other than a face, which is what I had done most of the time before," Everett said. "I took anatomy last year, so I could more effectively do proportions of people and I wanted to put that to use, so I made more of a person."

Everett plans to study fine arts and graphic design after graduation and is considering schools like Portland State and the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

"He is incredibly fun and has a broad range of different things he does," Cabral said. "He's a highly creative thinker above everything else. He has excellent craftsmanship and is a great worker, but he's fun and super creative."

Rounding out Newberg's award winners was Sandra Garcia, whose pop art illustration of a woman, "Marked," won a Silver Key.

"She seems shy, but her images are usually really bold," Cabral said.