Jun Xia's illustration: "Fireflies in the Garden"

April 29, 2010 - North Colonie had several student teams from Shaker Junior and Senior High School win awards in their respective categories at the annual Olympics of the Visual Arts Competition. The event is sponsored annually by the New York State Art Teachers Association (NYSATA) and is coordinated by Mr. Roger Hyndman, who served as the Arts Chair at the NYS Education Department, and who has roots at North Colonie as a former Art Department Supervisor.

The Olympics of the Visual Arts is an extracurricular school program that represents the belief that creativity and creative problem solving in the visual arts is vital to a full and enriched life in our technological and scientific society. OVA presents a series of problems that require utilizing historical and artist references, brainstorming, problem solving, and creative solutions.

Teams from all over the state attended the competition, and entries were accepted from elementary, middle school, and high school level students in eight categories: Drawing, Painting, Illustration, Industrial Design, Sculpture, Photography, Fashion Design, and Architecture. North Colonie students won awards in: Painting (JHS- 3rd Place), Illustration (SHS- 1st Place), Architecture (JHS-2nd Place) and the SJHS Sculpture entry placed 6th place out of 11 teams. The students had developed their creative solutions to the problems presented in their categories for months preceding the event. In addition, they participated in a spontaneous design problem at the event.

Participating teachers include; Mary O’Connell, Tim Secord, Aaron Haacker, and Courtney Erhardt.

The participating students include:

Illustration: (1st Place- SHS)
Jun Xia

Architecture: (2nd Place- JHS)
Marney Miller
Tyler Minick
Nell Leren

Painting: (3rd Place- JHS)
Sai Sreenivasamurthy
Alessandra Sitterly
Emily Gray
Sabrina Burdick
Katrina Simonsen

Sculpture: (6th Place- JHS)
Shivani Patel
Dhanisha Nandigama
Jordan Chiara