Schools
CHS Sophomore Wins First Place, Art Scholarship
Manny Rivas's mixed-media piece "One Half Can Equal Whole" earned him first place in the Congressman David Scott's Congressional High School Art Contest.
Winning first place in the first art contest you’ve ever entered is impressive, but winning first place in an art contest that earns you a $10,000 scholarship is an accomplishment.
sophomore Manny Rivas, 16, took home first place in ’s 10th annual Congressional High School Art Contest for his mixed media piece “One Half Can Equal Whole.” In addition to a $10,000 scholarship to the Art Institute of Atlanta, Rivas received a one-year young patron membership to the High Museum of Art. Rivas described hearing his name called as the first-place winner a surreal experience.
“When I won I couldn’t even talk,” he said “I had all this stuff to say just in case I did win. My parents were crying. I wasn’t even crying I was just laughing a lot. It was funny to me. It was just this flash. I could have sworn I was dreaming. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’”
But eventually Rivas figured out what to do.
“When I ran up there I picked up the Congressman!” he said.” I gave him this big hug and he started tearing up. He said, ‘So much love.’ He was such a cool guy.”
Rivas’s art teacher Susan Boyer said his work stood out not just because it was well executed.
“What really made his a really good piece was the emotional side,” she said.
“One Half Can Equal Whole” depicts two figures, one black and one white, beneath a brain. The heart of each figure is the color of its opposite. Rivas said this represents that they are different on the outside, but have the same values and morals on the inside.
“They not only can come together and use their mind intellectually, but knowledge of knowing one’s self and knowing each other,” he said. “Not only that, but you know how they say ‘great minds think alike’ so I put the big brain there because they think a lot alike. It just meant a lot to me. The judges what they said pretty much hit dead on. They pretty much said it stood for unity between race and differences and resolving the other. I liked what the judges said about it.”
Rivas’s piece will be on display at the United States Capitol for a year and he and his family will be flown to Washington D.C. for the opening this summer. Boyer plans to attend as well.