SAGINAW, MI — A Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy student’s artwork earned her acclaim from a national organization that once offered the same recognition to some of pop culture’s most esteemed creative spirits of recent generations.
Jane Whittaker, 15, received a gold medalist award in the 2024 National Scholastics Art and Writing Awards, a recognition program for teenagers across the United States.
The Midland resident earned the kudos based on a colored pencil drawing she produced last summer, titled “The Weight of Shame.”
“I was shocked,” Whittaker said of learning she won the award.
Its past recipients include Stephen King, Andy Warhol and Joyce Carol Oates, when they were teens.
Whittaker said organizers informed her “The Weight of Shame” will earn a temporary spot later this year in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Whittaker, who hopes to pursue a career in psychiatry, said the art piece was inspired by her interest in studying mental health. As its title suggests, the drawing symbolizes the feeling of shame, she said.
Whittaker produced the drawing, which can be seen here on the Saginaw Public Schools Facebook page, on her own time.
Her passion for creating art began years ago, while she was a student at Woodcrest Elementary School in Midland. It’s why she enrolled in a school — Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy — that is rated among the state’s top K-12 institutions for fine arts, Whittaker said.
Next academic year, she will enter the 10th grade.
Whittaker said she was thankful for the support of her teachers at SASA, including Lisa Ewald, who helped the teen submit “The Weight of Shame” for the national award.
Whittaker was the lone SASA student to receive the gold medalist award, but two of her classmates earned silver medalist recognition in the 2024 National Scholastics Art and Writing Awards:
- Nadia Collins, 10th grade, for her poem, “For What Price”
- Amaria Tarver, 10th grade, for her poem, “The Goddess”
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