Each school year, art teachers gather their most skilled students and coaches them to prepare for the annual VASE competition. The Visual Artistic Scholastic Event, or VASE, brings together students and their districts to judge their art in a stage-based selection similar to common UIL events. For each year, a regional director is required to host the VASE competition for schools within the area, which is where the problem occurs: With the end of the 2023-2024 school year, the regional director had retired, leaving the position open.
With the position open, this means that no school was designated to host the event for the area, which applies to our district. If a regional director wasn’t found in time, then there wouldn’t be a VASE event for the year, keeping many students in the surrounding area from competing but also many seniors as well. Evelyn Pauley, one of the art teachers at our school, expressed her concern with the event potentially being cancelled.
“I was taken-aback when I heard there wasn’t a regional director anymore. The past regional director had stepped down, and they’d told us that if no one stepped up for it that there would be no VASE for our region,” Ms. Pauley, the Rockport-Fulton High School art teacher commented. “I’m just happy that we’ll be able to participate this year.”
Preparations for the VASE contest begin around the end of the first semester, meaning that it would only be a few weeks before art students would begin coming up with their ideas for their art pieces. Creating art for this competition requires lots of planning before anything else can be started, which Ms. Pauley has stated she has already begun preparing with art students.
“I have already met with [them] individually to start talking about different ideas, and then I’ll hopefully get paperwork started early this year so that we’re not rushing to finish it before deadlines.”
Ms. Pauley was not the only person concerned with the last-minute casting of the regional director. Abby Walker, a 12th grade student who has participated in VASE for 4 years now, was very concerned about the possibility of not being able to compete this year.
“It was very worrying, yeah. I mean, I’m in my last year of high school, and I hadn’t advanced past area at all with my previous pieces. I was really banking on me being able to go to state this year,” Abby comments. “I was already coming up with ideas for my grand masterpiece in the making, just to find out there might not be a regional director? It sucked, y’know?”
Abby was not alone in her worries about the VASE contest being hosted, but since finding out that there will be a new regional director, has mentioned some of the steps she’s been taking with Ms. Pauley to begin her art piece.
“Yeah, I’ve been coming up with some ideas. I’ve had this theme going on for my more recent submissions, and I plan on loosely following that same theme this year. I’ve been thinking on what I’d do, and I think I finally have it.” Abby mentions. “Those judges won’t know what hit them. And the people I do it with, VASE that is, are also just as talented. I can’t wait to see what they have planned.”
