Around 60 students from 11 area high schools put their artistic talents to the test at the Visual Arts Classic (VAC) held February 27 at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
The VAC is a competition for art students in grades 9 through 12 and is presented by the Wisconsin Art Education Association. The competition features several studio categories involving a long-term project and an onsite short-term team project. This was the second year that UWRF hosted a regional competition.
“It’s a great opportunity for art students in high schools across western Wisconsin to compete and have a chance to go on to a state competition,” said Wendy Friedmeyer, director of art education at UWRF and coordinator of the event. “It gives them some nice goals for creating art. And for us, it’s great because it brings students to campus. It’s a chance for them to see the opportunities they have after high school.”
UWRF art and art education students serve as proctors and judges for the event. Grace Langfield, a junior art education and ceramics major from New Prague, Minn., helped judge the design category. For the architecture-based challenge, students had a few months to design and build a model of a monument using cardboard, foamboard, clay, wire, glue, paper and other materials. Then, at the competition, they had two hours to design a companion piece based on criteria they received that day.
Langfield said working with the students was good experience as she prepares for a career as an art teacher.
“It was great practice to talk to the student artists and think about how we’ll assess students when we’re actually teaching,” Langfield said. “We were also able to get ideas that we might bring into our classrooms.”
Langfield said she was impressed with how seriously the students took their work.
“They didn’t want to chitchat too much. They were very business-y today,” she said.
Challenges ranged from painting to digital arts and photography, printmaking, ceramics and design, art history, mixed media, sculpture and more.
Grace Simon-Dupuis, a senior from St. Croix Falls High School who plans to minor in art when she goes to college, created a stop-action clay animation video. Her 45-second video took about two hours to make and consisted of 205 individual photos.
Simon-Dupuis said she enjoyed her second Visual Arts Classic.
“VAC is really cool and it gets all the creative minds together in one spot where we can talk,” she said. “I think it’s really good for creativity.”
Simon-Dupuis also enjoyed the chance to check out UWRF’s Art Department.
“I absolutely love River Falls,” she said. “The Art Department is amazing. It’s one of the only universities that has glass blowing.”
Teams also competed in a quiz bowl and a critical thinking challenge.
Baldwin-Woodville was the competition’s overall winner. Chippewa Falls took second place and Turtle Lake took third. Winners of the eight regional competitions will compete at the VAC state event in Madison on April 10.
Written by UW-River Falls
Link to original story: https://www.uwrf.edu/newsroom/2026/03/area-high-school-students-compete-visual-arts-classic