{"id":13478,"date":"2026-03-13T10:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=13478"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:05:20","slug":"area-high-school-students-compete-in-visual-arts-classic-at-uwrf","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/area-high-school-students-compete-in-visual-arts-classic-at-uwrf\/","title":{"rendered":"Area high school students\u00a0compete\u00a0in\u00a0Visual Arts Classic\u00a0at UWRF"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Photo:<\/a>
Grace Simon-Dupuis, a St. Croix Falls High School senior, creates a frame-by-frame clay animation video during the Visual Arts Classic, held Feb. 27 at UW-River Falls. UWRF photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d said Wendy Friedmeyer, director of art education at UWRF and coordinator of the event. \u201cIt gives them some nice goals for creating art. And for us, it\u2019s great because it brings students to campus. It\u2019s a chance for them to see the opportunities they have after high school.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Langfield said working with the students was good experience as she prepares for a career as an art teacher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was great practice to talk to the student artists and think about how we\u2019ll assess students when we\u2019re actually teaching,\u201d Langfield said. \u201cWe were also able to get ideas that we might bring into our classrooms.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Langfield said she was impressed with how seriously the students took their work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t want to chitchat too much. They were very business-y today,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges ranged from painting to digital arts and photography, printmaking, ceramics and design, art history, mixed media, sculpture and more.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon-Dupuis said she enjoyed her second Visual Arts Classic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVAC is really cool and it gets all the creative minds together in one spot where we can talk,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s really good for creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon-Dupuis also enjoyed the chance to check out UWRF\u2019s Art Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI absolutely love River Falls,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Art Department is amazing. It\u2019s one of the only universities that has glass blowing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teams also competed in a quiz bowl and a critical thinking challenge.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baldwin-Woodville was the competition\u2019s 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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Written by UW-River Falls<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwrf.edu\/newsroom\/2026\/03\/area-high-school-students-compete-visual-arts-classic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":13479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[100],"story_category":[147],"class_list":["post-13478","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-river-falls","story_category-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/13478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=13478"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=13478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}