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MONDAY February 23, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels Decembe 5, 2003 Students win cold cash for peaceful ideas By Susan DeRosia Ashland Daily Tidings The Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library presented the inaugural Idea Contest "Words and Pictures" Thursday evening at the Ashland High School English Lecture Hall. The event was organized to increase awareness of the RVML and was open to current Ashland High students. Entrants could choose to write a 1,000-word essay or create an artistic collage to communicate their response to one of five questions. Cash prizes totaling $2,000 had been provided by a grant from the Sonoma County Community Foundation and were awarded to six winning students, out of a field of 18 essayists and 50 collage artists. Additionally, contest participants were awarded three video tape recorders. Winning the two $500 first prizes were Renata Jarvi, for her essay, "Life in Motion," and Shanay Healy, for her collage, "The Dawn of Peace." Second prizes of $300 were awarded to Sarah Cate, for her essay, "Fresh Start," and Hannah Sohl, for her collage, "Flying Lotus." Third prizes of $200 were awarded to Steven S. Becraft, for his essay, "Universality of Wisdom - Sharing Ideas to Dispossess Negativity" and Abeni Hill, for her collage "An Orb of Colors." Hosting the event was Joanie McGowan, who regaled the crowd with humor and a reading of a composite of parts of each of the 18 essays. Speakers included AHS art teacher Mark Schoenleber, RVML founding director Jordan Pease, and RVML volunteers, Hearne Moore and Naomi Marie. Many of the volunteers from the Metaphysical Library stressed the importance of what McGowan referred to as the need to "stop our culture's ongoing conversation about how difficult teenagers are and change the dialogue to how priviledged we are to have them in our lives." RVML Web designer Abby Lewis explained the questions asked when judging the essays. She said the essays were judged for being "positive, empowering, sincere, well-presented, and for technical qualities like grammar and spelling." Jochen Ziems, gallery owner of Nuwandart, where the RVML is housed, explained his guidelines for looking at or judging art: "When I look at a collage, or canvas or sculpture, I think, the piece itself is just a byproduct. It's not even anything that has to do with the actual art as you're making it. So when you're sitting at home on the floor, cutting out pieces of paper and going through magazines and you're thinking, what am I going to do? What idea am I going to have? Am I going to put this statement over here? Or, there's guy eating ice cream, am I going to put him here? This is when art happens, when your mind focuses on something, when your mind goes away from day to day life, from reality, from TV, from anything you think of. When you focus on the art, that's when it happens. So when I look at any kind of art, if I can understand and get back the feeling that was put in, then that to me is art." All the essays and the collages will be available for viewing during First Friday Artwalk from 5 to 8 p.m. at Nuwandart, 258 A St., Suite 2, in Ashland. The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 23. To view it on the Web, visit www.rvml.org. The Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library is open from 2 to 6 p.m. Call 552-9119 for more information. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: A new improved archive search is coming! Look for it in mid-February! .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - ODOT Road Cams