Each spring, Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, committed to the importance of our cultural heritage, join together to recognize the creative spirit of American high school students in a nationwide art competition. The Congressional High School Art Competition is implemented by the Members in the Congressional Districts and features paintings, drawings, collages, prints, mixed media, computer-generated art, and photographs. Each Member brings a winning entry back to Washington, D.C. to be displayed in the corridor of the U.S. Capital. Launched in 1982, this nationwide event has produced thousands of local competitions, yielding more than 500,000 high school winners.
This competition is coordinated locally through Fourth U.S. District Representative David Price’s office. High school visual arts students in the Fourth U.S. District counties of Alamance, Chatham, Cumberland, Durham, Orange and Wake are eligible to apply.
This annual congressional art competition, which brings together the best student artwork from across the Fourth District, features a $1,500 per year scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design as the top prize. In addition to the scholarship, the winning entry will be hung, along with the winning entries from other congressional districts, in a corridor of the U.S. Capitol Building.
If you are a current high school visual art student in the Fourth U.S. Congressional District in Orange County and would like to participate in the 2016 Congressional High School Art Competition, contact your high school visual art teacher or the Orange County Arts Commission. The 2016 guidelines and Student Release Form are now available for downloading from the Arts Commission’s website at www.artsorange.org under the “Grants” heading (Applications and Guidelines). Hard-copies are also available at the Orange County Arts Commission office in Hillsborough, at all Orange County Public Libraries, and at the Chapel Hill Public Library.
Artwork must be received at the Arts Commission’s office at 131 W. Margaret Lane, Room 216 in Hillsborough by 5:00 pm Monday, April 18 – Wednesday, April 20, 2016.
You can download the the 2016 application form and guidelines below:
2016 Rules for Students and Teachers
The Fourth U.S. District Awards Ceremony will take place on Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at the Junior League of Raleigh (711 Hillsborough Street) in Raleigh.
Questions? Please contact the Orange County Arts Commission at 919/968-2011 or arts@orangecountync.gov for more information.