ROGERS -- Two Rogers teens will be among those honored in Little Rock this month as winners in the 2016 Governor's Young Artist Competition.
The work of Krista Mussler, a junior at Providence Academy, and Andre Melchor, a junior at Arkansas Arts Academy, is on display at the governor's mansion this month.
They are among 34 high school students statewide and the only ones from Northwest Arkansas who will be recognized during a reception April 30 at the mansion with Gov. Asa Hutchinson and first lady Susan Hutchinson.
Mussler, 17, submitted an ink painting of the Greenville Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge between Lake Village and Greenville, Miss., across the Mississippi River.
Mussler has taken art lessons for four years. Her teacher, Tania Knudsen, introduced her to the ink painting form she used.
The lifelong Northwest Arkansas resident overcame a challenge early in life. She underwent surgery at 4 months old for craniosynostosis, a birth defect in which there is premature fusion of two or more bones of the skull. It's estimated craniosynostosis occurs in 4 of every 10,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mussler was treated at Arkansas Children's Hospital. She has given back by doing designs for the hospital's Christmas cards, the profit from which go toward helping children. Only those who have been patients at the hospital are eligible to submit art for those cards, according to Allan Mussler, Krista's father.
Asked where she gets her artistic talent, she said, "I get it from God. And just lots of practice."
Though Mussler has a quiet demeanor, she's a member of Providence Academy's varsity pom squad, said Jason Ross, headmaster.
Melchor, 16, has attended Arkansas Arts Academy, a charter school in Rogers, since kindergarten. His pencil drawing, Mutt, features several faces blending together. It received the Young Artist Competition's Best Pencil Medium Award.
Melchor said he took photographs of the faces of about 50 other students and used some of them in his drawing. He spent between 15 and 20 hours on the piece, including time he spent taking the photographs, he said.
"The whole piece is just around acceptance," Melchor said. "We all do fit into that template, and at the same time we're very much unique and it's difficult to put people into categories via race, gender. I just wanted to provoke people to contemplate what they think is important and how silly things are, like stereotypes and what not."
"I think his picture is amazing, and the name of it, powerful," said Mary Ley, Arkansas Arts Academy's chief executive officer.
The Governor's Young Artist Competition is a statewide juried exhibition for Arkansas freshmen through senior high school students. Drawings, paintings, prints and mixed media assemblages may be submitted. The theme of this year's competition was "bridges."
NW News on 04/15/2016