MIDDLEBURY — At their annual meeting this spring the Middlebury College Friends of the Art Museum recognized 18 students with awards in recognition of their outstanding achievements in the visual arts. Class of 2015 Middlebury College students Krista Duke and Robert Seltzer, nominated by faculty members, were recognized at the Friends’ Annual Dinner in May.
Duke, a joint studio art and theatre major from Keymar, Md., has previously won several awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. She was lauded for both costume designs and film animation. Seltzer, from Minneapolis, Minn., a joint major in studio art and geography, was recognized for his photography, printmaking and sculptural installations. One of his photomurals, 32 feet in length, depicts the dairy stall of the Honor Roll DairyFarm of Clarence Deering in Bridport. Seltzer is currently raising funds to install an aluminum version of the work on the road side of Deering’s barn.
The Friends awarded 16 local fourth- through 12-grade students an art book inscribed with their name on a special bookplate. The students — from Beeman, Bristol and Cornwall elementary schools, Addison and Ferrisburgh central schools; St. Mary’s School; Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School; Vergennes Union High School; Middlebury Union Middle School and the Hannaford Career Center — showed ceramics, sculpture, paintings, prints and drawings.
The awards were juried by a committee of the Friends group at the biennial “Spring Into the Arts” fairs at Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School, Vergennes Union High School and the Mahaney Center for the Arts (where Addison Central Supervisory Union student work was displayed).
Addison Northeast Supervisory Union recipients were Lizzie Demers and Celeste Jedlick (grade 4), William Wright and Cora Funke (grade 8), and Holly Micklas and Reed Martin (grade 12).
Gabbie Lindenmeyr (grade 4), Hannah Kelly (grade 6), Lilliana Jones (grade 10) and Liam Godfrey (grade 12) received awards in Vergennes.
The ACSU awardees were Talia Cotroneo and Alex Tolgyesi (grade 5), Journey LaRose (grade 7), Nora Draper (grade 8), Claire Wulfman (grade 10) and Sarah Sodaro (grade 12).
Area art teachers whose students were recognized for their achievement include Michaela Granstrom, Elise Cleary, Deb Mager Rickner, Ellen Arapakos, Bruce Babbitt, Alison Parsons, Leah Hammond, Janine Plumer, Stephanie Gallas, Lisa Maggio, Lisa Rader and Joe Bolger.
Seltzer and Duke both say they are planning to pursue careers in the visual arts, as have many of the local schoolchildren who have been recognized in past years by the Friends of the Art Museum.