If You Go
‘ What: Student entries in ArtsBuild contest. ‘ Where: Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View. ‘ Hours: 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Monday-Tuesday & Friday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. ‘ Admission: $9.95 adults, $4.95 children 3-17; free under 3. ‘ Information: 267-0968 or huntermuseum.org
Stephanie Van Horn, a junior at Chattanooga Christian High School, was the winner of a recent student arts contest sponsored by ArtsBuild. She is flanked by ArtsBuild Ppresident Dan Bowers and Patti Frierson, chairman of the Break- fast on the Bridge event, held May 2. The arts contest was done in conjunction with the breakfast.When Stephanie Van Horn learned she was a published artist and that people were paying actual money for her work, she cried.
Van Horn, a junior at Chattanooga Christian High School, was the winner of an ArtsBuild-sponsored contest directed at area high school students. A photographer, Van Horn says seeing her photo – a manipulated shot of the Walnut Street Bridge – being sold “was awesome in every sense of the word.”
“Juniors [in high school] are not really money machines and teenagers are not thought of as published artists, so yes, I got a little emotional.”
The sale of Van Horn and other students’ art took place on May 2 during Breakfast on the Bridge, a new fundraiser and awareness builder actually held on the Walnut Street Bridge.
“It was to celebrate the bridge, and to raise awareness for the need for arts education in area elementary schools and to raise money for ArtsBuild’s Arts Education Program,” says Julie Jackson, director of development and communications for ArtsBuild.
For the contest, students were asked to create an original, two-dimensional piece that included the bridge in some way. Although she’s primarily a portrait photographer, for this piece Van Horn focused on the bridge’s architecture. Yet it all started with a portrait shot.
Some time back, she was shooting a portrait on the Walnut Street Bridge when she noticed the bridge’s railing pattern and the way it played with light and shadows. So she snapped off a photo.
When it came time for the contest, she took the image, repeated it and rotated it three times to create a mirror-image effect, then manipulated the colors in each quadrant.
“I wanted to do something completely different,” Van Horn says. “I think it incorporates the old Chattanooga and modernizes it with the colors.”
Her winning image was reprinted and signed copies were sold during Breakfast on the Bridge – 30 of the 50 signed prints sold for $20 each, Jackson says.
All 25 contest entries are on display through the end of the month at the Hunter Museum of American Art. Among the pieces are works by Brian Hodges, Kasey Patton and Zairub Javed, the first, second and third runners-up behind Van Horn, who also took home the contest’s $200 top prize.
While her focus is still on portraiture, Van Horn says “I might have to look more into architecture. This worked out for me.”
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.