In The Image of a Creative and Imaginative God

This year, our students’ creativity and abilities were recognized as they collectively won 33 awards in the 2020 Portland Metro Scholastic Art Awards. Art teacher, Mrs. Evy McLean is delighted and very proud that nineteen PCS students won 8 gold keys, 14 silver keys and 11 honorable mentions.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards recognize middle and high school student artists and writers across the country. Maurice R. Robinson founded the awards in 1923, with a vision “to give those high school students who demonstrate superior talent and achievement in things of the spirit and of the mind at least a fraction of the honors and rewards accorded to their athletic classmates for demonstrating their bodily skills.” (http://www.artandwriting.org/who-we-are/)

Gold key winning art pieces are displayed at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PCNA) from February 6-21, 2020 (https://cal.pnca.edu/e/2865). Portland Christian students’ five Gold Key art pieces are on display together with other artwork from 7th to 12th grade students in Clackamas, Washington, and Multnomah counties. Gold key works from Oregon and other states will be judged at a national level. In previous years, Portland Christian students have received national medal recognition in New York City.

One of these students is 11th grader Matthew Griffith. He has been submitting his artwork since 8th grade, and he has, every year, won a Gold Key award as well as Silver and Honorable Mentions. This year, he received 3 Gold Keys, 2 Silver Keys, and one Honorable Mention!

“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawing,” says Griffith, explaining he’s always loved to draw. In elementary school, he drew a lot of cartoons, mainly of people. Today, he still enjoys drawing people in a style he terms “self-realism.” The people he draws are based on photographs he’s taken. His favorite art mediums are color pencil and acrylic paints. One of his Gold Key paintings this year is an acrylic work of his sister on a Florida beach. Griffith is also a member of PCS’ Varsity Soccer team, and participates in PCS track and field in the long jump, high jump and triple jump. He contributes his artistic abilities to the High School Student Council (StuCo) as promotions officer, creating graphics for StuCo events.

Griffith and his fellow Scholastic Art Award winners can now call themselves alumni of the Scholastic Art awards, along with other artists and authors like Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Cy Twombly, and Ken Burns. This is an exciting opportunity to celebrate with our students as their abilities are honored through this great achievement!

Two of the recipients