A painting by Courtney Schanz, a junior at Pittsfield High School, took first place in the Pittsfield CityJazz Festival’s Student Art Contest. Her art work will be included on the informational poster for the Festival, and thus will be seen by thousands of people in and around Berkshire County, as well as visitors to our web site. She is pictured here with festival Chairman Ed Bride (l) and Steve Miller, of Miller Supply Co., a major supporter of the arts, who provided gift certificates to the top three winners.
The three paintings are shown here, in descending order: Courtney Schanz, Melissa Chaffee, Ryder DeLeo:
Painting by Courtney Schanz
Painting by Melissa Chaffee
Painting by Ryder DeLeo
Dozens of students from Pittsfield’s two public high schools participated in a contest to create the poster art for the fourth annual Pittsfield CityJazz Festival, to be held from Oct. 10-19.
Art teachers engaged in the project were Colleen Quinn (Pittsfield High School) and Marybeth Eldridge (Taconic High School). They report that the students had a great time learning about Jazz, and incorporating that newfound knowledge into the projects. The contest was an engaging way to help spread the word –and the fun– of Jazz, America’s cultural gift to the world.
Winning entries were announced and displayed at the “Art in Schools” exhibit at Pittsfield’s Lichtenstein Center for the Arts. The work of the three prize winners and five honorable mentions were on display until June 7.
Cash prizes and/or gift certificates to Miller Supply were awarded to the top three prize winners (all from Pittsfield High School):
Honorable mentions: Alethea Couchman and Stephanie Van Bramer from Taconic High School; Joyceline Affou, Christian Austin and Joshua Menard from PHS.
Judges were graphic designer Mark Tomasi of Berkshire Bank, Pittsfield Youth Coordinator Cassandra Ynocencio, and Megan Whilden, director of the city’s Office of Cultural Development.
Project coordinator was Art Niedeck, a Jazz musician, music educator, and member of the Pittsfield CityJazz Festival steering committee.
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Way to go Court!
They are all great though!
Great painting Courtney. I would love to get a poster size of the print in order to frame it and show it in my music hall. How lovely.