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Fitch student wins national award for art
Estelene Provance wanted to try a different type of art, one that would allow her to get her hands dirty.
AUSTINTOWN — A Fitch High School student has received a prestigious award for her art.
Estelene Provance, a senior, won an American Visions Medal from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a national program founded 86 years ago. Her prize-winning entry is a ceramic piece titled “Alert Wolf.”
Provance will be honored June 4, along with the other national winners, at a gala event at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are sponsored by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, a national nonprofit organization.
“I am amazed that my sculpture has won this type of an award,” said Provance.
She has taken many art classes, but always in pencil and paper. The decision to take the ceramics class at Fitch, where she created her winning piece, came from her desire to try something different.
“I fell in love with it,” said Provance of ceramics. “Since I was little, I have always liked creating things with my hands. In that class, I got to actually get my hands dirty and create something out of nothing. So I got to do two things that I like to do at once — getting my hands dirty and create.
“Alert Wolf” was her response to a class assignment to create something that dealt with nature and had texture.
“I heard students around me saying that they are doing shells, fantasy creatures or plants,” said Provance. “So I started thinking, ‘What have I seen or have had in my life that dealt with nature?’ Then I remembered when I was really young I had a wolf for a pet.
“That was it — a wolf deals with nature and it expresses my personality perfectly. I may be nice, different and intriguing to look at, but I am very protective of my family and friends when something happens to them. So creating a wolf head, which shows a lot of emotion, on its guard, was perfect.”
Provance, at first, struggled with the texture of the wolf’s fur.
“I thought I would just make lines into the wolf head,” she said. “But then I was talking to my dad and he gave me the idea of trying to make the fur stand out. I tried making the clay stand up, and everyone thought it was amazing.”
Provance gives credit to Karen Weinberg, her art teacher at Fitch.
“She pushed me to do something that I like and enjoy. She doesn’t judge people on how they look. She accepts what they are into and pushes them to do something more with their interests.”
Weinberg was excited for Provance’s success. “I have had National Key winners before, but never an American Vision Award winner,” she said. “It is very exciting to have one of our students win such a prestigious national award.”
Weinberg noted that the Fitch High art show will be Tuesday through May 17 at the Austintown library. “Alert Wolf” will not be among the works on display because it is still in New York for the national exhibit.
Provance plans to go into the art field after she graduates next month. The daughter of Bernadette and Jeffery Provance, she has been accepted at Pittsburgh Technical Institute, where she will study multimedia art in pursuit of a career in graphic design.
Provance’s path to her national award began at the McDonough Museum at Youngstown State University, one of 81 regional affiliate organizations nationwide that, in partnership with the Alliance for Young Artists, conduct the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
The Northeast Ohio region includes Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties.
Participating regionally this year were 75 art educators from 60 schools, who delivered more than 500 works by approximately 475 area students. The regional award winners were recognized in a ceremony at Ford Theater in YSU’s Bliss Hall on Jan. 24.
The works of the top five winners from this region were then sent to New York, where they were evaluated by a panel of jurors.
The jurors selected “Alert Wolf” as the national winner for this region.