2019 student award recipient response

Student award recipient 2019, Nordhoff student, Arley Sakai with Scholarship co-chairs, Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend and Carol Shaw-Sutton.

Arley Sakai spoke of the award:

“My name is Arley Sakai, and I am a senior at Nordhoff High School. In the spring of my junior year, my art teacher, Kate Thomas, suggested I apply for the OSA Scholarship. As an upper-classman, with a keen interest in expensive schools, I seized the opportunity. Being the first scholarship I had ever applied to, I didn’t know what to expect. But alas, not long I received notice that I had gotten the Beatrice Wood Award for Special Achievement in the Visual Arts. I was shocked, and so grateful, and forever will be.

It is important that other students have the opportunity to be recognized for the creative endeavors, especially those at a public school like Nordhoff where one teacher is can be responsible for 40 students, leaving them unavailable for consistent feedback and support. Further, receiving the award showed me something about art as a young adult—there is merit in it. Showing students there is value and validity to their creations will only encourage them to continue a life in the visual arts; I know it did for me. So, with your contributions, artists of the future will be supported, and I thank you for that generosity.”