Oak Knoll School photographers and artists have been recognized in the 2020 Regional Scholastic High School Art and Writing Competition, presented by the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. This is the largest competition for high school students to showcase their visual and written creative projects.

Oak Knoll’s all-girls’ middle and high school earned Gold Key, Silver Key and Honorable Mentions in the photography and art award categories during this 97th annual competitive selection that yielded more than 340,000 entries from across the nation.

The Oak Knoll winner in the Art category is:

• Kaitlin Settle ’20, of Basking Ridge, who earned an Honorable Mention for a grey scale paper collage “Bacchus”

The Oak Knoll winners in the photography category are:

• Cara Feit ’20, of Chatham, who earned a Silver Key for “Boot” & Honorable Mention for “Self Portrait”
• Olivia Gaston ’20, of Morristown, who earned an Honorable Mention for “Ruminating”
• Mabel McNamara ’20, of Summit, who received an Honorable Mention for “Bread Lady”
• Helen Farrell ’21, of Chatham, who earned an Honorable Mention for “Back Flip”
• Megan Joel ’21, of Chathan, who received an Honorable Mention for “Sea of Red”
• Grace McCaghey ’21, of Jersey City, who earned a Gold Key Award for “Corn Maze” and also received an Honorable Mention for “Horse”
• Nora Quinn ’21, of Westfield, who receive an Honorable Mention for “God was Here”

“Our students’ work is judged with an original, creative vision as well as with technical skills by professional artists and photographers,” said Oak Knoll Upper School photography teacher Jennifer Breitenstein. “We see this as an opportunity for our creative students to forward their work into a bigger pool and we applaud students for taking this risk, whether they are recognized or not.”

McCaghey will move on to a national judging and her winning work will be on display at the Montclair Art Museum during the last two weeks in February. The exhibit is open to the public during regular museum hours.