Billboard contest features youth art

What do first through 12th-graders and billboards have in common? For the entire month of March, they'll join to form one of the largest outdoor exhibitions of children's art in Bloomington and Indianapolis.\nCourtesy of "Your Art Here," a Bloomington-based, non-profit organization, art by students from Bloomington and Indianapolis schools will be on display on billboards at four Bloomington and four Indianapolis locations. \nRecent IU photography graduates Shana Berger, Alyssa Hill, Nathan Purath and Owen Mundy dreamed up the idea of putting art on Bloomington billboards in August 2002. The group formed "Your Art Here" because of the need to reclaim the often-disregarded exhibition space, Mundy said.\n"We wanted to take a hand in the most dominant form of visual communication," Berger said in an earlier interview. "Billboards aren't available for exhibit to most people, yet they are seen by large numbers of people everyday." \n"Your Art Here" seeks to put art everywhere -- not just on billboards. In the beginning, the group's goal was to see art on any public space available -- from billboards to clothing and business cards to building walls and even "java jackets," the cardboard rings that protect coffee drinkers' fingers from the searing beverage inside the cup.\nDuring the past year and a half, YAH programs have involved mostly billboards. And "Billboard Generation II" -- the group's second annual youth program -- is no different. Dedicated to the National Youth Art Month, the program invites participants to answer the artistic question, "What would you like to tell your community?" This theme challenges students to interact directly with their community and to consider the impact their art can have on others, Mundy said. \nThrough this competition, the founders hope to "instill in the students the desire, knowledge, and confidence that will allow them to engage their community and world throughout their lives," YAH founders said in a statement.\nLast year, the competition was only open to Monroe County Community School Corporation students. This year, YAH received submissions ranging from individual projects to collaborations among whole classes. To run the Youth Art Month campaign smoothly, YAH hooked up with Indianapolis-based Primary Colors, a fellowship of Indianapolis artists bringing the arts to underprivileged and under-represented youth. The two groups collaborated to publicize the contest throughout Indianapolis, Mundy said.\n"It's harder because Indianapolis has 10 times as many students, if not more," Mundy said. "So we're trying to be as organized as possible with this thing."\nThe contest ended Feb. 2, and YAH founders are currently deciding on the nine winners. Once the winners are selected, their art will be magnified to the range of about 11 by 22 feet and displayed throughout March. The billboards will go up next week both in Indianapolis and Bloomington. The group has worked out a deal with Hoosier Outdoor Advertising, a Bloomington-based company that owns most billboards in Monroe County and the surrounding area. It receives a 15 percent discount off renting local billboards as they become available. According to the agency's Web site, www.hoosieroutdoor.com, a billboard in Bloomington costs $800 per month for a one-month lease, $760 per month for a six-month lease and $720 per month for a year-long lease.\nLast year's contest's theme, "War and/or Peace," reflected the escalating conflict in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Student entries included everything from pencil drawings of guns, tanks, flowers and doves to a painting depicting people of different races reaching up to hold a brightly-lit torch with a dove flying overhead. This submission, titled "Peace, Worth Striving For," by a 16-year-old student, won first place in the high school category. An eight-year-old student won the elementary/middle school category with his vision of war and peace -- scorched woods and guns on one hand and bright green spaces on the other.\nWhatever their selections, YAH founders want the art to get attention from the community.\n"We're looking for stuff that would get a response," Hill said. "It's not just art on a wall -- we want a piece that the viewers could interact with"