Mount Greylock art students from grades 9 through 12 had their work displayed as part of the Ninth Annual Teen Invite at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams last weekend. The show, which lasted from April 26 through the 28th, included works from teens throughout the county, and culminated in a Friday night awards ceremony with live student music.

Greylock sent work from twenty students, many of who are freshman, and won a variety of awards. Works by Mallory Alden, Adriel Benko, Hannah Byrnes, Takiera Darrow, Elizabeth DeGraff, Julia Donati, Lucas Forman, Diego Galvez, Caroline Hadley, Emma Hayward, Simon Klompus, Felicia  LaRoche, Juliann Lawson, Grace Miller, Jamie Rhinemiller, Piper Schulman, Colette Stapp, Alexis Toomey, Elizabeth Westerdahl, and Olivia Winters were on display.

The students were led by high school art teacher Jane-Ellen DeSomma, who guided the students in the creation of their works and ultimately choose those who would exhibit at the show. Desomma spoke of the process for choosing which works would be displayed at the competitive show, “I watch for good work because it is a juried show. We compete against Buxton, the Academy at Charlemont, Monument, Lenox, Pittsfield, Drury. It is quite a competition so you do have to send what you perceive to be the best.” Students who won awards not only received memberships to MASS MoCA, but also funds for their school’s art department. This year students won a thousand dollars for Greylock’s art classrooms.

Desomma mentioned that the group was led in large part by ninth graders, saying that this “year four ninth graders won — and I was so thrilled to see them so thrilled to see their art in a museum and then go up on stage and receive an award for it.” In summing up the event, Desomma exclaimed, “I couldn’t be more pleased with the way it went this year! All the work was fabulous. Its very very exciting for them. MASS MoCA does a wonderful job with the reception and the kids are always thrilled — you can see at the awards ceremony people clapping and whistling and it was very very exciting.”

Sophomore Emma Hayward, whose work was entered in the show, described the creation of her work as a “long process. We cut pictures out of magazines so we could make collages based on colors and tones —  we made three. I decided to work mostly on my warm color picture and after we were done with the collages we painted them – to replicate them. To Hayward, the show made her “feel really good about myself because I don’t think that I’m that much of an artist. I was really proud of my work but I thought it was really nice that it was displayed. It made me really enjoy art class a lot more because I was even more determined.”