Krystin Anderson

For the last year, dozens of high school art rooms across the state have been filled with the sounds of artistic industry: brushes stirring bubbles in water-filled glass jars, dull pencil tips squeaking against clean paper, palette knives slicing wedges out of clay lumps.

Award winner Jane Shuppy found the inspiration for her pencil drawing "My Friend Kyle" in the form of a friend she ran into while lingering in the South Summit High School art room during some down time at school.

Shuppy didn't expect to be accepted, and certainly not to win, but at her art teacher's encouragement she submitted and was awarded the coveted Director's Award. She said she was pleased to see someone else influenced by her work.

"Art means that I can touch somebody just by [them] looking at something I've done," Shuppy said. "That means a lot to me that they can feel something very deep on a personal level just by looking at the art [I've] done."

Michael Lee of Provo High School had two pieces that garnered awards. "Ozone No Zone" and "Inspiration," which received an Award of Excellence and depicts two skeletons with flower pots for heads, one planting a seed in the head of the other.

"I guess it's a mentor-and-student relationship," Lee said. "The underlying theme is that you can't force, only inspire."

This is especially applicable to Lee, who was raised by parents he described as both artistically inclined, and who, like Shuppy, wouldn't have submitted were it not for his art teacher's encouragement.

"We can't say enough for the kind, caring guidance of all the teachers throughout the state," said Virgil Jacobsen, the museum's assistant director and curator of education, about those he called the "unsung heroes" of the show.

Over the next year, 25 pieces from the show will be on display at various non-profit organizations throughout the state. Three students, one from each congressional district, will fly to Washington, D.C. to have their artwork hung in a national show at the Capitol.