News…

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Winners of the 2013 Congressional Youth Art Competition will be announced at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, in the Great Hall of the Culture Center in Charleston. A reception will follow with refreshments.

Each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide high school visual art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and in each congressional district. Since the competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have participated. Students submit entries to the West Virginia State Museum in Charleston and a juror selects the winning entries. Winners are recognized at the Culture Center in Charleston and at an annual awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. The students’ work will be featured in a Culture Center exhibition that runs through March in honor of Youth Art Month and the district winners will be on display for one year at the U.S. Capitol.

New this year, exhibition juror Staci Leech Cornell will conduct an artist workshop for students on Tuesday morning at the Culture Center. Cornell, who earned a master of fine arts degree from Marshall University in 2007, is a working artist who has shown extensively throughout West Virginia and Ohio. She works out of her studio at Still Maybe Studios, in Nitro, W.Va., and is employed by The Clay Center of Arts and Sciences in Charleston as the assistant gallery manager.

For more information, contact Exhibits Coordinator Betty Gay at (304) 558-0220, ext. 128, or email her at Betty.G.Gay@wv.gov.

The West Virginia Division of Culture and History is an agency within the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts with Kay Goodwin, Cabinet Secretary. The Division, led by Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith, brings together the past, present and future through programs and services focusing on archives and history, arts, historic preservation and museums. For more information about the Division’s programs, events and sites, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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