After two months, ArtReach’s first art competition is coming to a close, with results being announced on May 24. A club devoted to creating donatable art, ArtReach’s main motto is to give back to the community. The competition began on Jan. 24 and applications ended on March 12.

The pieces were judged based on multiple factors, such as artistic skill and the artists’ response to the question “What does the future look like to you?”.  As this is the first year of the competition, senior and president of ArtReach Shivika Sivakumar shared the results of the initial poll used to assess the number of participants for the competition within the club during their meeting on April 25.

“We did expect 50 percent and we got almost 50 percent,” Sivakumar said. “So we’re quite happy with the 36 people who submitted because all of the entries, each and every one of them, had a lot of hard work and effort into it.”

After the competition is officially over and the winners have been announced, participants will have their artwork returned to them. Prior to the commencement of the competition, community outreach officer Anoop Kaur and secretary Aparna Manoj were worried about the response the competition would get.

“I feel like all of us going into the art competition were definitely really worried about submissions,” Manoj said. “Especially with second semester and being seniors already, we’ve seen that they don’t have the incentive to participate in things like this.”

In order to combat a possible lack of incentive, competition winners would be awarded with prizes, including art supplies, drones and polaroid cameras. To spread awareness of the competition, flyers were posted around school, and ArtReach worked with Art Club and Design IT to spread news of the competition to members who attended their meetings.

“We were scared that because we’re a smaller club on campus, not a lot of people would know about the competition” Kaur said.

The results for the winners of the three categories, traditional, digital and 3D were planned to be released a week before AP exams. However, due to scheduling problems with the judges, it was pushed back. Previously, the idea of student judges was juggled around. However, after further discussion, in order to avoid favoritism amongst friends, it was decided to have Literature teacher Vanessa Nava, Math teacher Melinda Gaul, Art teacher Tyler Cripe and Art teacher Brian Chow serve as judges. The teachers were chosen in order to get different perspectives on the art pieces. The results are set to be released on May 24.

This art competition has been the culmination of Sivakumar’s ideas in sophomore year and the combined effort of the senior officer team. It’s been in the works for over 2 years, and was only set in motion this year due to club members taking action and preparing the paperwork to show to leadership.

Having seen the competition to its end, Sivakumar is satisfied to have it remain as a tradition for future members to carry on.

“I’m really glad I did this, I’m part of ArtReach because one I’ve always loved drawing, painting, art,” Sivakumar said “Two I always like the idea of giving back to society [it’s] always been with me, so when ArtReach combined those two together and within the vicinity of our school it was perfect.”

With the approaching graduation of the senior officer team, a new officer team is being chosen to lead ArtReach. Current officers hope for the next officer team to carry on the competition for ArtReach, while adding on new and innovative ideas.

“I hope that they bring fresh opinions and they don’t just continue the trend,” Kaur said. “This was our first year doing the competition so it’s in its baby form. We want to make sure the next officer team will mature it to make sure that it can reach an even wider audience than it reached this year.”

In order to improve the competition next year, Manoj believes that the next officer team must have an eye for details.

“It’s super important that it’s promoted on time and things get done early like planning in terms of not just, ‘Oh when are we gonna set the deadline?’, but week by week planning,” Manoj said. “So really taking time to plan out when all those kinds of details are going to happen and a lot of it is just like which clubs are you going to [work] with, which teachers are going to help you with judging and things like that.”

In formulating the new officer team the current officers are looking for specific traits in applicants. Sivakumar wants the new officer team to be passionate about ArtReach and not join solely for the reputation of being an officer.

“They should actually understand the message of the club,” Sivakumar said. “Understand how important it is to help others in society and do it because, they’re passionate about it.”