PEA RIDGE — The Pea Ridge’s elementary schools art gallery Web site is currently holding the top overall ranking in the state of Arkansas as well as holding high rankings nationally.
The Pea Ridge Primary and Intermediate School students’ (grades K through 5) work is displayed on a worldwide online art gallery run by the Artsonia Corporation of Illinois. Every school, public or private, can have access to and use of the Web site with the parent company also conducting art competitions throughout the school year.
Schools receive rankings based on the amount of artwork published online, thenumber of people joining fan clubs of the respective artists and the number of positive comments left online by gallery visitors. Art products purchased online with Artsonia also counts for points in the competition.
Since the school term started in August, Pea Ridge art students have published over 8,100 works of art, attracting 679 positive comments in that time span with 1,143 fans registered to appreciate the students work. Products purchased from Artsonia with student artwork printed on them has raised $82 for the art program this school year.
Artsonia remits back to the school 15 percent of the proceeds of all art purchases
The Web gallery was launched in late February of this year and as of Nov.
15, the site has attracted nearly 83,000 visitors from all across the United States.
In the short time Pea Ridge competed in the 2008-2009 contest, the school climbed to the third-ranked position in the state by the end of that school year.
Currently, the school is tied with Bald Knob Elementary for the overall first place position in Arkansas. The 8,100 published artworks not only leads the state but also leads the entire United States as well, with 2,000 more published works of art than the next closest school. Pea Ridge ranks second in the number of fans registered for thestudents here, and is also ranked second in the state for the number of positive comments. The art gallery generated purchases ranks fifth overall in the state.
Nationally, besides being the number one school in the amount of art produced, the school ranks 15th in the “comments” category. Overall, the school has a national ranking of 26th.
John McGee, art teacher, said: “I think Artsonia is the greatest thing since the first painting of sliced bread. Our use of the online gallery has been a huge booster of kids’ self esteem and pride. Having people from all over the U.S. see their art and some make positive commentshas really made an impact.
Before Artsonia, a lot of the student artwork ended up in trash cans between the art room and their home room but that has changed drastically.”
“I think we might actually have 100,000 visitors log on to our site before the New Year, something that I thought would have been impossible when I first got into the Artsonia experience.” McGee said. “I have received e-mails from people from other states thanking us for the Web site as it allows them to see when their grandkids are doing in school, something they had never been able to do before. Visual art is made to be seen and the online gallery has enabledus to showcase our kids artwork to anybody in the world who has access to a computer.”
The Web site is currently having a sale on sweatshirts and Christmas cards with the products printed with the artwork of your favorite young artist.
McGee’s goals of the year include claiming the top overall spot in the state as well as grabbing a top 20 position overall nationally.
With only about 20 percent of Pea Ridge parents currently registered as fans (no charge to sign up), the Little ’Hawk gallery could climb even further with increased fan participation.
The Pea Ridge online art gallery is located at www.
artsonia.com/pearidge2.
Community, Pages 10 on 11/18/2009