The St. Louis Art Museum announced the winners of its annual competition. The competition encourages artistically inclined students above the age of thirteen to submit up to three pieces related to this year’s theme, “Ocean of Possibilities.” 

The competition took place in February, but the winners weren’t revealed until early May. The judges selected a handful of talented individuals–except this year, two of those talented individuals were Lindbergh School students. 

“I was really surprised about winning. I didn’t expect to be written back, even though they said that they would. Weeks went by, and eventually I was like, well, there were no 8th graders in the last one. But then I was like, it’s okay, I’ll do it next year, it’ll be fine, whatever. But then I got the email back and I was ecstatic,” said winner Jette West (8).

The Young Artists’ Exhibition is something that West has considered one of her most recent and greatest opportunities. She describes art as her passion, finding it the best way for her to express her sentiments.

“I think that art is something that someone creates in order to represent feelings, events, and a lot of stuff. There’s a lot that can be represented by art; it’s self-expression. If there was a subject that I would choose to pursue, it would be art,” said West.

Another winner, Lucy Aschinger (9), had similar perspectives on what art and this competition mean for her. 

“I think that art is everything. I think the brick wall behind you is art. I think anything can be art and anything will be art as long as you see it as art,” said Aschinger, “I’ve always been interested in art, ever since I was a young kid. It’s my passion. I want to pursue art in the future, and I want to do more in the art community than what I’ve been doing recently.”