photo by: Contributed

A work by Lawrence High School Junior Lola Brown.

With photos and paint, two Lawrence High School students have been telling very personal stories about isolation, identity and women’s rights — and now they’re in a selective national program that will help them take their art even higher.

Junior Lola Brown and senior Adele Erickson both learned at the end of November that they’d won a YoungArts award for their artwork. They were among the 800 or so students in the U.S. selected this year out of 11,000 applicants for the program, which will give them access to mentorship, financial support, and ongoing creative and professional opportunities.

“This honor feels surreal to me,” Brown said in an email to the Journal-World. “It doesn’t quite feel real yet to me that I’ve won.”

Brown submitted series of her photos for the contest. One series explored how the presence and absence of her great-grandmothers — one of whom she is named after — has influenced the development of her identity along with her own internal expectations.

photo by: Contributed

A painting by Lawrence High School Senior Adele Erickson.

“This series is really meaningful to me because it was the first time I began finding my voice as an artist,” Brown said via email. “The story I was telling was also very personal to me, and all the pieces have personal objects woven into them, deepening their meaning to me.”

In a second series, Brown explored how a lack of understanding from other people has led to self-isolation. She added that each piece told an individual story of an event, person or time in her life that has shifted her toward isolation.

Erickson, who submitted paintings for YoungArts, said she’s always been a very visual person and got into drawing as a kid. When she got to high school, she said she typically expressed herself through portraits, and she found an encouraging environment for her art.

“I’ve gotten to a point where I use my work to express political views and social commentary,” Erickson said. ” … I try (to) use my paintings as a vessel to express my beliefs.”

“I really love creating more feminist work,” she said. ” … In an age where we are trying to limit female rights relating to their own bodies, I think that I have a fresh perspective on the issues we face as women, and finding a way to capture that and to give life to it in an image that sort of speaks more to those issues.”

photo by: Contributed

Lawrence High School Junior Lola Brown

photo by: Contributed

Lawrence High School Senior Adele Erickson

Todd Poteet, Erickson’s teacher, said that in the last year, Erickson’s work has shifted to making more statements and taking a stand.

“Her work has continued to kind of play off of this patriarchal society and how it’s really a world built for men, by men, and women are left out of it in so many regards,” Poteet said. “… She’s really hitting that issue and how it has affected her and how it even affects the way she plans on moving forward in life.”

Brown said that her teacher, Angelia Perkins, has helped her so much over the last couple of years. When Brown has ideas for photos, she said, it’s always helpful for them to sit down and bounce ideas off of each other.

“She always pushes me to do the best I can,” Brown said via email. “I sometimes think she sees more potential in me than I see in myself. If it weren’t for her, I would not have grown in photography as much as I have.”

When it comes to helping students find their own voice in their photography, Perkins said it comes with a lot of experimentation.

“I think that we’re inundated with so many visuals and no one really teaches you how to see or comprehend all of these images that you’re being bombarded with and you’re being manipulated by,” Perkins told the Journal-World.

“And so I think if you start to understand not only the visual imagery that’s in front of you, but the visual imagery that you can create, that gives you that other voice,” she said. “It’s almost like you learn a new language.”

This year, YoungArts selected more than 800 students on the basis of their technique and dedication to honing their craft. The artists come from a wide range of disciplines — classical music, dance, design, film, photography, theater, writing and more — and each student’s work is evaluated by panels of artists in their field.

The honorees do get a cash prize of $250, but they also get many benefits beyond that. YoungArts award winners are eligible to receive exclusive creative and professional development support, microgrants and financial awards, along with presentation opportunities in collaboration with major venues and cultural partners nationwide.

“It’s a really intense program in terms of once you are part of YoungArts, then you’re basically part of that group forever,” Perkins said. “… They will support (you) and have workshops, and they have everything for you (and) you are able to choose what you want to participate in.”

The honorees also become a part of an intergenerational network of more than 22,000 past award winners and have the opportunity to participate in YoungArts Labs, all-expenses-paid workshops in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. Previous winners nationwide include such accomplished creatives as Daniel Arsham, Terence Blanchard, Camille A. Brown, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Amanda Gorman, Judith Hill, Jennifer Koh, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Andrew Rannells, Desmond Richardson and Hunter Schafer.

“I think what I am most excited for is the community of young artists that I am now a part of,” Brown said via email. “I’m excited to be in a wide community of people who have just as much passion for photography as I do.”

Lawrence High students have had success with YoungArts before. Last year, Henry Farthing was honored by YoungArts for his photography, and he was awarded a grant to attend the Pre-College Art Program last summer at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

“In my 30 plus year career, I think I’ve had a grand total of five winners in that competition, and that’s including Henry,” Poteet said. “And Henry wasn’t really (my student, he was) Angelia’s.”

With these new resources at her disposal, Brown said that she hopes to continue growing and making art that is meaningful to her.

“I want to continue to evolve in my pieces by adding more mixed media (and) more techniques,” Brown said via email. “But mainly, I want to continue to feel proud of the work that I produce.”

Erickson said that when it comes to art, it’s very subjective and a lot of people will judge it based on the type of art they like, but all it really takes is knowing what you love to create and sticking with it.

“At the end of the day, your message and your voice is important,” Erickson said. “And art is a great way to channel it.”