The Emerson Young Artists Showcase is open to students between 15 and 19 years old who reside within 150 miles of the St Louis Artists Guild. This year, there was a total of 120 artists that participated all across the St Louis Area. Three of those were Ms. Kathriner’s art students.

The Emerson Young Artists Showcase traditionally highlights some of the most talented high school artists in the St. Louis area. The three PHS got selected to have their artwork in the 2021 showcase alongside other students around St. Louis.

Senior Kelly Hill is one of the three who got their piece of artwork selected this year. Her piece is called “Tranquil Shield” and was created as a “form of stress relief for both myself and those viewing it, now is a very stressful time for more reasons than just the pandemic so I wanted to create a message that, no matter what’s going on in your life you can still find inner peace through things you enjoy.”

Many artists may have a plan and know for sure that they want to show off their artwork to the public to see and they do it for various reasons but sometimes that may not be the case. According to Hill, “I chose to submit this piece kind of last minute. I don’t normally submit work to galleries, but I felt that this piece could spread a positive message despite the dark imagery.”

“My favorite part of this piece was using media I’m not normally used to, the combination of digital and tea as a sort of watercolor, I feel, gives it a cool effect. I decided on using tea specifically because I think taking a moment to drink some tea can be surprisingly helpful to get your thoughts together and calming down,” said Hill.

Different colors work well with different types of pictures and sometimes there is a meaning behind it. Hill explains why she chose the colors for her artwork: “I chose to use brown and the grey-purple because while tea doesn’t have many colors to choose from I wanted to maintain a sort of contrast.”

Senior Eliana Johnson also submitted her artwork into the showcase. Her piece is called “The Spiral of the Night” which was inspired by “the struggle to keep my thoughts from spiraling into darkness as I try to fall asleep,” said Johnson. “Most of my piece was actually an image that came into my head as I was trying to deal with that specific struggle.”

For Johnson, the piece reflected her effort. “I think it is the most complete and relatable of my works this year, and I put a lot of work into it.”

Johnson’s favorite part of this piece is “the spiral staircase and how the shading, perspective, and structure are well executed.”

“I chose to use mostly black and gray to communicate the dark mood as well as the idea of night. The staircase I chose to make a red tinted brown because it is not only the way down into the dark thoughts, but also the way out, so I used warmer tones,” said Johnson.

Senior Maite Tena Gaona also submitted her artwork into the showcase. Her piece is called “Te Escucho” which was inspired by “the question that I created in my AP Art and Design class: ‘How can I represent being a Mexican-American in the US’ and how I could connect both identities.”

Sometimes the reasoning for submitting art work is very simple according to Gaona: “I chose to submit this piece because it was one of my most recent pieces that I feel was good.”

Gaona’s favorite part of the piece was “the putting the pins and yarn in place.”

She chose those colors in her piece because “I wanted to give the illusion of a map texture and I felt like the color of the coffee would be nicer with neutral colors and the red of the pins matched the color of the hair and yarn.”