W M Pearce Primary School student Diego Diaz is the proud winner of Artsonia’s Artist of the Week contest, a voting competition held on Artsonia.com, the world’s largest collection of student art portfolios exhibiting almost 80 million pieces of student art.
Diaz received almost 900 online votes for his winning art. When Diego was asked about how he felt when he found out he had won, he said, “I was so thankful I won and I was very thankful for my teachers and everyone who voted for me.”
Diaz’s teacher, Lynisa Ross, has been teaching art in the Southside Independent School District for 9 years. Ross finds the students benefitting greatly from art during these unprecedented times. “For many students, art can be the only time in a week that they feel successful in anything.” She continued, “I love being that safe space for my students to explore who they are and grow into who they want to be.”
“(We) celebrate individuality every day!” She adds. Diego’s favorite thing about art class? “We get to use our imagination and creativity.” He says, “It’s very fun to be able to draw what we think is cool and amazing.”
When Ross was asked how she felt to have a student recognized for their artistic achievement, she responded, “When a student is recognized for doing something they enjoyed, sometimes that recognition can open their minds to the arts as a future career path.”
Lynisa Ross is one of the thousands of art teachers from over 100 countries around the world who use Artsonia to showcase their student art, crowdsource lesson plans and help fundraise for their classrooms. Artsonia lets family and friends of student artists create and purchase organic keepsakes from the student art, and then gives back 20 percent of all revenue to the local art classroom. 
Artsonia developed Artist of the Week ten years ago as a way to encourage teachers to submit student artwork and engage the school and community to vote on and recognize students for their achievements. Every week, Artsonia selects 12 random submissions in each of four different age groups (PreK-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12) from artwork submitted the previous week. Voting is then open to the public for several days before the winner is announced.
Blick Art Materials generously donates a $100 gift certificate to the winning school and an individual $50 gift certificate to the student artist.
“Our mission at Artsonia is to bring communities together to celebrate children’s artistic expressions,” said Notre Dame Alumni Jim Meyers, CEO and co-founder of the company. “Artist of the week is a perfect way to get local schools, families and friends involved in the process of creating, recognizing and cherishing student art.”
About Artsonia
Artsonia is the world’s largest online collection of student art and a destination for thousands of art educators in over 100 countries worldwide. The website curates 80 million pieces of student art (and counting). Artsonia works with teachers to create online school art galleries and student art portfolios. Parents and relatives can view the art online, leave comments and order keepsakes featuring the artwork. As part of its mission, Artsonia donates 20 percent of merchandise revenue directly back to local classrooms. Since 2000, it’s donated more than $10 million.
A 2018 Common Sense Education Top Pick for Learning, Artsonia inspires students and promotes the sharing of art with its weekly Artist of the Week campaign and online gift shop — all while helping to fund local school art programs. To learn more, visit artsonia.com.
