Four Lambton County secondary school grads have received high praise as well as financial support for their post-secondary studies as recipients of this year’s Gallery in the Grove Senior High School scholarships.
Each of the four recipients of the gallery’s annual scholarship program – which included LCCVI’s Olivia Bourne and Tanis DeGurse as well as Northern Collegiate’s Baillie Loucks and Ava Martens – received $1,000. The cash will go towards supporting their studies in art programs at universities and colleges.
Gallery in the Grove’s educational chair Gwen Moore congratulated all of this year’s recipients for their artistic acumen, and told them they were the latest in a long line of local high school graduates who have benefited from the gallery’s scholarships.
“There’s been such a breadth (of recipients)…” Moore said. “Last year we had an architecture student, which was a first for us. But there have been a lot of students pursuing fine arts, graphic design, painting … even industrial design.”
The gallery began giving out scholarships to local high school grads in 1982, Moore said, providing over $140,000 in support since that time.
Northern Collegiate art teacher Trevor Jamieson was among the group of jurors – made up each year of local high school art teachers – who reviewed applications for this year’s scholarships.
Jamieson said he was highly impressed by the quality of work submitted by applicants. For jurors, it is particularly interesting to see how each individual artist has grown and progressed during the course of their years in high school, he said.
“It’s really difficult each year to make a decision,” Jamieson said. “The students present their best work and it’s a real treat to see because you can see just how far they’ve come in their high school career.
“To get to jury this is a real pleasure but also challenging because you have to narrow it down to four or five students,” he added. “It’s exciting to see the art, read their artistic statements and learn about what their plans for the future are, it’s honestly been a great joy to be a part of that process.”
Bourne will be studying graphic design at London’s Fanshawe College, while DeGurse will be heading to the University of Windsor to enter the visual arts/concurrent education program. Loucks will be studying graphic communications management at Toronto Metropolitan University, and Martens will be attending Brock University to study studio arts.
All four scholarship winners thanked the gallery for their generosity.
“I’m very thankful – I’m really happy that I’m one of the recipients,” Loucks said. “I normally don’t have a lot of confidence in my art, but I thought if I put myself out there, try something new and apply for the scholarship … I just might get it.
“It means so much to be one of the few selected by the gallery,” she added. “It’s unbelievable.”
“I was so excited when I heard I got the scholarship, because I knew how expensive tuition can get,” Martens said with a laugh. “But ever since I could pick up a pencil I’ve been drawing, so it’s very nice I can keep doing it as a career, hopefully.”
Moore said the gallery is in the process of organizing an exhibition that will showcase some of the work of past scholarship winners.
“We’ve had a number of students come back before and show their art, so we’re hoping in 2025 to get art from quite a number of our scholarship winners and host an exhibition here.”