This state-wide art competition runs from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., and is being sponsored by the Wisconsin Art Education Association and the UW–Madison Art Department, which is housed within the School of Education.
“This jam-packed, fast-paced event is a one-of-a-kind opportunity in the United States, providing art-focused high school students an opportunity to share their artistic ideas beyond their own communities, experience UW–Madison, and begin to envision themselves as college art and design students,” says Mary Hoefferle, a faculty associate with the Art Department who directs UW–Madison’s undergraduate art education program, and who is helping plan the event on campus.
The Visual Arts Classic (VAC) features 12 studio categories related to an annually changing theme. Students study selected artists whose work relates to the theme and then create their own work in response to the theme in their long-term projects.
Students submit their projects to a regional competition, and winners advance to the state level — where their long-term projects are critiqued by professors, artists, and art educators. While on campus, the students then create artwork in response to new prompts in their “on-site” projects.
School teams also compete in a Critical Thinking project and the Art History Quiz Bowl, which relate to the selected artists. Through their preparation for, and participation in, the competition, students: conduct in-depth research; work through ideas in written form and sketches until they arrive at a solution; develop studio skills; analyze and critique works of art; manage time/meet deadlines; and learn self-motivation and how to collaborate with peers.
“The Visual Arts Classic competition gives our students the opportunity to challenge themselves in creating artwork that they enjoy, but also that fits into the challenge requirements,” says Dana Showers, an art teacher at Mount Horeb High School. “It helps them learn how to talk about their own artwork, but also how to receive criticism. Most importantly, it helps our students make connections with artists from other schools, from the professional artists and professors who judge their work, and to be a part of a community made up of other people who are also enthusiastic about art.”
Additional details about the competition are available on this Wisconsin Art Education Association web page.