Hard work. Dedication. Determination. Achievement.

Months of preparation have lead up to one of the largest art competitions in the nation this Saturday.

The Visual Arts Scholastic Event, or VASE, is a statewide art competition that students from various schools submit pieces of artwork to be judged, and possibly awarded both in the regional and state competitions. However, the competition itself isn’t based on the overall structure of each piece, but rather the story behind it.

Each piece is unique in its own way, and senior Joseph Beckham’s piece is no exception.

As a first-time competitor, Beckham said he isn’t sure what to expect in terms of the competition; however he knows that he has to captivate not only the judge, but his fellow competitors as well.

“I’ve heard that the first part, the VASE part, it’s mainly about your confidence and how you present your piece and, once you go to state, how well constructed it is,” Beckham said. “My plan is to go to state, so I’ve been trying really hard to come up with a good story for my sculpture, and I think I’ve got one.”

Beckham’s sculpture is called “Immersion.”

“You see there’s the pirate ship and the Kraken, it’s a little bit of a pun, to immerse something in water is to submerge it,” Beckham said. “But also immersion is like when you’re reading a book and you get caught up in the book, like you’re a part of the story and you just keep reading, and keep turning the pages.”

So Beckham created his sculpture from a book, with the reader symbolically represented by the pirate ship and the squid representing the story “immersing the reader in the book.”

“The reader starts off with a blank white space, and where the squid touches it leaves an impression on the reader and brings them into the story,” Beckham said.

Beckham said he has worked hard to prepare for the competition and that he is confident in the quality of his piece.

“The story just kind of came to me,” Beckham said. “After the piece I just said ‘hey, I like pirate ships, what can I do with a pirate ship?’ And I thought about immersion, water, puns and it just kind of went rolling after that.”

While Beckham hopes to make it to state and eagerly awaits the day of the competition to explain his art from the fantasy viewpoint, others wait eagerly to share the personal tie they have with their art.

“I’m really stoked up right now,” senior Marisol Calixto said. “Personally I just can’t wait to tell the other person about my artwork, because I normally do religious artwork and the Catholic faith is what I normally do my pieces on. So I just can’t wait to share my faith with them and express it in my artwork and tell all the symbolism that’s in it, and what it really means to me.”

Though Calixto heard about VASE from her older sister who competed in last year’s competition, she has her own expectations for the competition.

“I’m expecting to get more knowledge,” Calixto said. “I can’t wait for them to tell me their criticism; not in a bad way, but what I can better at, and things that I have told them that have touched them. I know they have ribbons, and I hope I get a ribbon like my sister did.”

For many of the competitors, the time they have to work on each piece is limited, giving them a small window of opportunity to really perfect each artwork to their liking. For some the time is crucial.

It was over Christmas break that senior Pamela Ekechukwu received a disheartening text about her clay sculpture.

“I can honestly say this sculpture is the most stressful I’ve ever had before in my life,” Ekechukwu said. “I had started with maybe 12 weeks to go, but over Christmas break it had collapsed. I was about a week away from finishing the mold and about a week away from firing it.”

Ekechukwu said she felt like crying over all her hard work and dedication going to waste, but instead she pulled herself together and became determined more than ever before to not only finish the piece, but have it ready for competition.

“It was complete and utter chaos, and I told myself I cannot cry,” Ekechukwu said.”It took me eight weeks to do the first one, so what I did was I actually dropped one of my AP classes to continue on with art. So what I did [initially] in eight weeks, I did in five. So literally this one is the epitome of extremely hard work and dedication and patience.”

Ekechukwu added that she also enjoys the competition for the opportunity to be inspired by the variety of art from the other competitors, even if you don’t get to meet them in person.

“You can get a sense their imagination,” Ekechukwu said. “It’s overwhelming to see how much work someone has put into it. It’s really humbling.”