PROJECT XL GIVES STUDENT-ARTISTS A CHANCE TO SHINE

"T his whole experience has given me the confidence that what I'm doing is actually good," said Ben Clark.

Ben, 15, is a Project XL winner. He received best of show and first place in original music for his song "30 a Day," about gun violence in the United States. "I wrote the whole thing in about a half an hour," said the student from Floyds Knobs.

Project XL, a statewide high-school competition sponsored by Farm Bureau Insurance, is now in its 15th year. It invites teens to express their creative skills. Contestants use their medium of choice to interpret the year's theme.

This year's theme was change. Students were asked: "Think about your life, your decisions, your world in the past few years. You have experienced upheaval and excitement. You are making choices which will shape the rest of your life."

About 4,800 students from 245 high schools submitted works. Participants could choose from six media: writing, 3-D art, 2-D art, performance, video art or original music. Scholarships were given to the top three in each area, as well as best of show and an award to the school with the most finalists.

Y-Press talked to Ben and some of the other 2004 winners.

Brett Varvel, 18, won first place in video art for his film "Crossroads," about a boy's conversion to Christianity. "I just thought it'd be a good opportunity for me to exercise my talents and use what the Lord's given me," said the graduate of Bethesda Christian in Brownsburg.

Matthew Lewis, 16, from Manual High School, created a welded sculpture of a tree and cocoon titled "Magic of Evolution." "The basic idea of my project is having something die and then giving rebirth to it," said the first-place winner in 3-D art.

Ashley Mennel, 17, from Center Grove High School, won second place in 3-D art for "Transparent," which combined transparencies and mirrors. "It was just about how you lose sight of who you are when life keeps going and you don't know how to react," she said.

Christina Kloess, 17, won first place for her essay "Baby Don't Worry," about a friend who "has a lot of things in her life that she doesn't like." Christina, from Elkhart, also won first place in the writing category two years ago.

Amy Bradford, 17, of Evansville, won first place in 2-D art for "Everything Changed," which she described as a self-portrait using pictures of herself, her family, and a newspaper story about her father, who was convicted of murder in 1993 (he remains in prison). "I was pretty much just trying to show how that one incident changed my life entirely."

Jansen Langle, 18, Fort Wayne, placed third in video art for "Optic Metamorphosis." "We just tried to change the audience's perception. We had a guy who hit somebody, and in the beginning he actually tells somebody to go and get this girl's purse, so you assume that she was being robbed. And by the end, you find out that she was just trying to use a cell phone to call somebody to help somebody else."

Here's more of what they had to say about their projects.

Inspiration

Christina: Mine is about a very good friend, the best friend that I've ever had. I was writing it for her because she was so upset when she called me, and I didn't know what to say. I'm not good with words when I'm speaking, so I wanted to write something for her.

Ben: (The song) was pretty much inspired by the movie "Bowling for Columbine," and just about people getting murdered in the U.S. and stuff, and how we're so far over the top compared to everybody else in the world with guns.

Brett: When I was thinking of change, I wanted to do a video on not just a physical change, but an inner change. And so I decided to do a video about a guy going through a conversion experience, converting to Christ. I drew that inspiration from my own personal experience when I got saved.

Matthew: I just kept on going through ideas for about a week and finally came up with one I liked. Most of the changes I went through was learning how to weld better.

Jansen: Basically what me and my partner tried to do was we wanted to make a change in your perception, or your perspective.

Amy: What I did was I took the story of my life and then I presented how it changed me.

Ashley: Through high school, I've had a lot of changes occur, and as soon as my teacher gave us the project, the first thing I thought was that the change in myself amazed me how what I saw in the mirror was OK with me.

Changes in them

Ben: I think that Project XL is a great opportunity for people to find out what other talents they have.

Christina: I'm not good at sports at all. This is kind of like my only experience because my high school focuses so much on sports. It's like my only way to be recognized.

Brett: This has opened up a lot of doors to do other videos for people. It's really changed my perspective on change I think, too, just the fact that you can think one thing about changing, but that change actually takes place inside.

Matthew: I learned that I can do anything that I put my mind to basically, and I've just got to try my hardest.

Ashley: I never thought people would enjoy my artwork. I've been making art, like everyone else, since like 3 years old and the only people that enjoy it are our parents and the refrigerator. It really gives me a boost of confidence. It's just really, really changed my life.

Jansen: Basically now I look at things a lot more without making assumptions so easily.

Amy: I think I have more self-confidence in my artistic ability. And also I realize that whatever you put your heart into, there is always a good outcome.

Future plans

Matthew: I'm planning on going into the Army or the Navy and getting a full degree in automotive.

Jansen: I'm planning on going to either Ball State or possibly going abroad to Germany and learning different film techniques.

Amy: I'm going to go to U of I and possibly major in art as of right now.

Ashley: I have narrowed it down to three schools I want to go to: Savannah College of Art and Design, Chicago Art Institute and Harrington School of Design in Chicago.

Brett: I'm going to Ball State, studying video production. My big dream is to start my own video production business and make movies.

Ben: I might be going down to Nashville to record a couple of other songs.

Christina: Someday, I'm going to be a novelist. Next year, I'm going to St. Mary's in South Bend.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Julie McDowell, 15.

REPORTERS: Hae Jin Nishio, 13; Mark Nishio, 11.

Who we are

Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization with offices in The Indianapolis Star building. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call (317) 444-2010 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

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