Local students win awards at youth art show

FALLBROOK — At the California Art Education Association’s Youth Art Month (YAM) show, local art student Austin Fuller won the Spiazzi Achievement Award, given to one student in the kindergarten through second grade category.

Kelly Thomas, another Fallbrook art student, won the Spiazzi award given to one sixth grade student in the exhibition.

These awards are given by judges at the San Diego Art Institute (SDAI). Kelly also won honorable mention in the sixth through eighth grade category.

The YAM show is now on exhibit at the SDAI in Balboa Park.

These students, along with six other Fallbrook young people in the exhibit, studied with Marilee Ragland at the Fallbrook School of the Arts.

This year, 147 artworks from 17 public, private, parochial and charter schools in San Diego County fulfilled specifications for originality, composition, media technique and presentation.

Other Fallbrook students whose works were accepted into this juried show and who were declared finalists are kindergartener Paxton Hagen with his collage “Underwater,” third-grader Amanda Gutierrez with her colored brayer print “The Cheerful Cheetah” and fourth-grader Shakeera Jenkins with her brayer printing-plate “Silent Brightness.”

The show will remain on exhibit until March 1. The students and their families and friends are all invited to a reception and awards ceremony on March 1 from 2 to 4 p.m. All artists will be presented with a Certificate of Excellence and awards will be given out.

The San Diego YAM show can be visited Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from 12 to 4 p.m. The SDAI is located across from the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park at 1439 El Prado.