There can be no doubt that the Farmingdale students who participated in the Olympics of the Visual Arts (OVA) and garnered an unprecedented seven total awards are most definitely winning. The extracurricular school program has art students from across all of New York State using their creativity and originality to solve long-term, artistic problems, as well as provide on-site, spontaneous solutions to a group problem during the annual competition.
Winning in the OVA competition requires extreme dedication, many hours of focused work and enthusiasm. The first hint of OVA activity began at the very beginning of the school year with some students arriving before class and inquiring when the themes would be announced. This pre-OVA buzz continued into the beginning of November when they finally got their wish and the long-term art problems to which the students had to offer resolutions were announced.
Farmingdale’s nine OVA teams, competing at the middle and high school levels, left in the wee hours of the morning and arrived in Saratoga Springs with their long-term art works in tow. Students from a total of 40 school districts had less than one hour to set up their respective exhibits before moving on to the spontaneous problem that presented an enormous challenge, as no communication with the students was permitted while they worked to complete their short-term solutions in just ninety minutes. After students submitted their short-term solutions, judges roamed, observed and scored all entries. Students anxiously waited as the judges worked. Finally the awards ceremony began, and Farmingdale students were delighted when their respective teams were called to accept the following prestigious awards: High School Drawing: 1st place; High School Painting: 1st place; High School Sculpture: 1st place with perfect score; High School Illustration: Most creative; High School Game Design: 2nd place; High School Architecture: 4th place; High School Fashion: 8th place; Middle School Painting: 2nd place; Middle School Game Design: 3rd place.
All the students involved were given tremendous support by their parents, as well as the Farmingdale OVA staff, including Mrs. Martinez, Mrs. Steffen and Ms. Vega. Collectively, they all contributed to OVA and are responsible for Farmingdale’s continuing tradition of developing their artistic problem solving skills and winning!