Award-winning ceramics piece made by Emily Conners that she gave to dad Bill as a Christmas present to be included in his art pottery collection. "My new favorite piece!" the Dad says. — Award-winning ceramics piece made by Emily Conners that she gave to dad Bill as a Christmas present to be included in his art pottery collection. “My new favorite piece!” the Dad says.

About 100 public and private middle and high school students from Wellesley earned regional prizes from the annual Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program. They will be honored at a ceremony this weekend in Boston orchestrated by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and winning works will be on display at City Hall through March 28.

Whereas about the same amount of Wellesley Middle School students were honored as a year ago, the number of Wellesley High students honored was significantly lower than usual. Concerns were raised by students and faculty at WHS about the awards and it turned out that applications for photography and metals submissions might have been overlooked initially, perhaps the result of a new judging system being in place. But WHS Art Director Thom Carter says applications were resubmitted and an additional 8 awards were given to Wellesley High students. Carter said he was satisfied with the revised results and was planning to check out the display over the weekend to gauge tastes of the new judging outfit organized by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “Massachusetts is one of the most competitive states in this competition,” he says.

A highlight for Wellesley was high school junior Austin Ludwig’s Gold Key-winning music video submission, “Trama — God only knows,” earning recognition as one of just a handful of regional American Visions nominees, making it one of the top submissions across all categories in the state and a candidate to win a national honor. The student, whose visual arts teacher at Wellesley High is Julie Spilka, also earned a $5K scholarship for his efforts. (More here on Ludwig from Boston Globe).

National medals will be announced later this month. You can look forward to seeing award winning projects at Wellesley Free Library in April.

2013 Scholastic Art & Writing Award winners from Wellesley, MA