Wildcats win big at regional art show

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Oak Harbor High School students dominated a regional art show.

Wildcats’ drawings, paintings and clay creations nabbed nine of 15 spots in this year’s Northwest Educational Service District 189’s Regional High School Art Show. All 15 pieces are entered into the annual Superintendent’s High School Art Show, from which 26 pieces will be selected for statewide recognition, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“It’s always great to see your students’ best efforts qualified,” art teacher Kit Christopherson said. “Art contests are never a definitive of your students’ talents, but it always feels great to have students recognized and their efforts qualified for sure.”

Notably, Oak Harbor High School junior Joel Bennett won Best in Show with a black-and-white pointillism portrait which took “hundreds of hours,” his artistic statement reads.

Works by sophomores Miyabi Leelaphisut, Jasper Christopherson and Bella Rapp, juniors Gwen Miller, Kaitlin Cellona and McKenzie Burdick and seniors Morgan Brawford and Sarina Randolph won as well. Students from Glacier Peak, Bellingham, Lynwood, Friday Harbor, Burlington-Edison and Snohomish high schools created the six other winning pieces.

Northwest Educational Service District 189 serves 35 school districts across Island, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties, according to its website. A total of 117 students submitted 154 pieces of art, according to Jennifer Longchamps, the district’s regional art show coordinator.

Longchamps said the show has been held for more than 50 years and serves as a way to recognize students’ creativity, effort and unique artistic expression. The latter often conveys students’ perspectives and personal experiences, she added.

“Recognition through exhibitions like the NWESD Regional High School Art Show helps build (students’) confidence as well as pursue scholarship and future career pathway opportunities,” she said of the show’s benefit.

Beyond allowing students to build confidence in their work, Christopherson added that highlighting high school students’ work through contests like these can demonstrate to taxpayers that students’ education is well-rounded.

Longchamps said a new panel of three artists representing a variety of artistic mediums judge pieces each year.

“All the artwork is judged blind. Neither judges nor voting staff know who submitted each piece,” she added.

Winners are honored on the district’s website and receive a poster featuring a photo of their art and the awards they won. Some finalists earned $2,000 tuition waiver scholarships from Central Washington University.

Christopherson acknowledged that winning is good, but getting students to submit work in the first place is great. Judging can vary year-to-year, and he added that there is a “danger” to making winning the goal of submitting work. All students are encouraged to submit art to competitions, rather, to familiarize themselves with the process.

The hope is that students become more comfortable putting their work out there to prepare them for applying to things like galleries in the future, he explained.

“I use the phrase a lot: you can’t catch fish if you don’t go fishing,” Christopherson said. “Which is a real dumb saying, because it’s very obvious, but people miss that a lot. And so I’ve kind of put that on my students so that they just continue to submit.”

Bennett and Leelaphisut are fitting examples. Christopherson said both students submitted their work to competitions for years before finally earning any accolades.

“The quality will just improve with time and pressure, but the ability to spot opportunity — that’s something they have to have a good mind frame for and just be, you know, participants,” Christopherson said.

Find photos of all winning art at www.nwesd.org/2026-nwesd-high-school-art-show-gallery/. The state art show is set for 3 p.m. on May 19, and will be streamed live at youtube.com/@waOSPI.