PEA RIDGE — When the 2011-2012 school term came to an official close on June 30, Pea Ridge Elementary School again earned the top spot in general excellence among Arkansas schools participating in the Artsonia Arts Challenge.
Pea Ridge’s internet art gallery was named the best in Arkansas for general excellence for the third year in a row. The locals were far and away the top school in posted artwork as they uploaded 21,234 pieces as compared with the second most total of 5,897 produced by Bald Knob. Little ’Hawk artists also had the most community involvement of any school as they had the most registered fans in the state (1,624) and the most comments posted by visitors to the website (1,298).
The elementary artists were solidly ahead of the runner-up school, Smith Elementary in Conway. For the first time this year, another Benton County school made the final top 10 rankings as Gentry Elementary forged a tie with Mattison Elementary, another Conway school, for the ninth-place ranking.
In third place was Rena Elementary of Van Buren, fourth was Jonesboro Visual and Performing Arts School, fifth was Bald Knob, sixth was Parkview Elementaryin Van Buren, seventh was Dardanelle Elementary and eighth was Flippen Elementary School.
To date, in its just over three-year involvement with the Artsonia program, nearly 250,000 people have visited the Pea Ridge website, also the most in the state. Artsonia hosts web galleries from over 6,000 American schools as well as thousands of schools in other countries.
In the school year just passed, numerous art students won awards in local, regional and state competitions, with 50 artists having their work on display in Tulsa, Okla. at the Gilcrease Museum of American Art in a special two-month exhibit.
Student artwork was also on display in downtown Little Rock through the month of June.
Artsonia-Just Beyond Imagination is an institution based in Illinois that hosts student artwork from around the world. With several million artworks on display, it is easily the largest display of art objects in the world.
The Pea Ridge website is www.artsonia.com/ pearidge2. As no artwork has been posted for the 2012-2013 school term yet, visitors can click on the archives link to look over the past three and half years of student work.
Over 67,000 artworks are on the Pea Ridge website.
Community, Pages 9 on 07/11/2012