Art contest proves they have flair

Paula Matzek of Mount Prospect writes everything from jokes and satirical writing, to short stories. This time, however, she submitted one of her pieces to the Arts Unlimited Contest, sponsored by Northwest Suburban High School District 214, and the Daily Herald.

Judges in the community portion of the contest found her prose entry, "Delta Blues" to be an entertaining read, and one that stood out above the rest.

Matzek, a retired teacher, most recently at London Middle School in Wheeling, took first place among writers in the contest. She has found more encouragement to write after joining the Mount Prospect Writers' Group.

The contest drew more than 300 entries overall from members of the District 214 community, including works of art, poems and short stories.

Bill Leece, a retired Rolling Meadows High School English teacher and published author himself, judged the prose entries.

"They were all very high quality, but I look for things that are exciting," Leece said, "that tingle you when you read them."

Matzek was one of the few adult winners at Monday's Spring Arts Festival, held at Forest View Educational Center in Arlington Heights.

The afternoon event showcased a collection of works by students and community members during an opening reception and awards ceremony in the theater.

"The community contest is open to anyone who resides in the district," said Liz Schrenk, an art teacher at Elk Grove High School and Arts Unlimited Coordinator. "It's just a coincidence this year, that so many of the winners were students.

"It's all done by a blind judging process," Schrenk added. "They only had the individual pieces to look at, and knew nothing about their age or location."

Placing among the top three in prose were two Buffalo Grove High School seniors: Ronit Kazan for her story, "Rainbows and City Lights," and Timna Axel, for hers titled, "Our First Years in America."

Kazan wrote about her first trip to New York City, while Axel captured her family's move from Israel to this country, made when she was 7.

"It was a lot of territory to cover, but I tried to include a lot of small details, like food, to make the story sound real," said Axel, who heads to Northwestern University in the fall to study journalism.

Among the visual art entries, Christine Donovan, 17, of Buffalo Grove, took first place with her untitled work.

The Buffalo Grove High School junior created it in her Photography III class, during an assignment where students were asked to take negatives and burn the edges, for a cutting-edge effect, so to speak, of the image.

Elk Grove High School senior Agnes Dziedzic placed second with her piece, "Korale," which was done in colored pencils. The image is one of a series of 12 done for her portfolio that focuses on the details of a dress, with its various embellishments, including pearls.

Among submitted poems, two Buffalo Grove High School students took top honors, including Denise Parmar for "String," and Nicole Shek for "Carbon Paper."

Parmar used her memories of working in the vegetable garden with her grandmother to form the image in her poem.

"My job was to tie the knots in the string that held up the lilting mint trees," Parmar says. "That time with her was really special."