Exeter High Student Wins Award At Seacoast Artist Association

Press release from SAA:

Oct. 18, 2022

It was a big night for the Cooper family at the Seacoast Artist Association’s Second Friday reception. Mom Kim Cooper launched her Body of Work show “Reimagining Art Nouveau,” and daughter Bailey Cooper won the People’s Choice award for her "New Hampshire Peeper Makes a Shocking Discovery" at the annual Mystery Kit exhibit. The SAA sells identical kits every June to benefit their Scholarship Fund which helps local public high school seniors who go on to further their studies in the visual arts. Artists then have all summer to invent their creations, and all finished pieces are always amazingly different from each other.

“I learned about the Mystery Kits through my mom,” Bailey tells us. “She entered the contest last year and won the People’s Choice award. As I watched her progress through her piece, I soon decided that I wanted to compete in the contest too. This year I told my mom that I wanted to enter a piece into the SAA Mystery Kit Theme Show just like she did. So she surprised me with a kit and we took it from there.

“Working with the miscellaneous objects provided by the kit was definitely a challenging task. I remember laying all the materials out onto a table and thinking, ‘How in the world am I supposed to make something out of this stuff?’ As I started looking at the materials individually I started asking myself what these materials reminded me of. The pinecones reminded me of scales, the shininess of the yellow disc reminded me of a wild animal’s eye, and the blue fabric reminded me of water. Soon Nessie and her froggy fan was born.

“As of now I am 14, a freshman at Exeter High School, and a lover of all things art. My mom taught me how to make artwork at a very young age. Since then I have been making art nonstop. I love watercolor, digital art/animation, and sketching. I have always loved art, so entering and winning this contest is a really big step for me as an artist.

“I also want to support the scholarship fund and anyone else out there who wants to pursue art through high school and into adulthood, like me. Lastly, I hope that perhaps one day I might be a recipient of a scholarship like this one.”

Visit the SAA Gallery at 130 Water Street in downtown Exeter Wed-Sat 10-5 and Sun 1-4 and see all of these great creations and remember to pick up your Mystery Kit next June before they sell out. You can donate to the scholarship fund anytime at their website seacoastartist.org Follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

This press release was produced by SAA. The views expressed here are the author's own.