Samo students advance to state level in annual ‘Reflections’ competition

Sam ReamerStaff WriterThis year’s theme for the PTSA 2011/2012 Reflections Arts competition was “Diversity Means…”. Four Samo students, Hanna Biabani in Literature, Natasha Janfaza in Musical Composition, Nikki Bell in Photography and Alison Guh in Visual Arts, were selected as school level winners. Biabani’s and Guh’s pieces later went on to win at the district level and are now being judged at the state level.Junior Alison Guh had not expected to win her category, and almost didn’t even enter.“I saw fliers all over the school and one of my mother’s friends mentioned that it would be good for me to try,” Guh said. “So I decided at the last minute I was going to try to submit something.”Guh believes that one of the core reasons she won was because of the connection she was able to make to this year’s theme.“When I first heard the theme was diversity, I was thinking of how diversity should be thought of as a strength,” Guh said. “So I ended up doing a painting of three women, and they were separated into different sections and were painted together as one. I guess I just really responded to the theme.”Junior Nikki Bell responded to the prompt in a different way focusing more on unseen diversity.“I took a picture of different people’s hands holding sand from different places,” Bell said. “Most people think of sand as being all the same, but if you look at it closely it’s really different.”Bell added that the process took a lot of hard work and a long time to execute.“I had to take the picture and that took a while because I had to set everything up and then I had to spend about four hours developing it just to get it to the right contrast,” Bell said.Samo librarian Dana Bart-Bell often encourages students to participate in Reflections because she feels it can help students realize hidden talents or build upon existing ones.“I think the Reflections program is an underappreciated opportunity for kids to participate in by showcasing their skills and talents,” Bart-Bell said. “I try to let students be aware of any contest like Reflections where they can show their talents and art. Sometimes they’re not showing their talents, so much as their discovering them.”Bart-Bell said that Reflections can even have a positive affect on students, even if they intitially participate just for a résumé boost.“I know some kids will just do it because they will want it on their college application, but maybe in doing that they’ll find that they enjoy spending time creating art,” Bart-Bell said. “Then maybe it will go from something that extrinsically motivates them to something that intrinsically motivates them to produce art.”sreamer@thesamohi.com