National YoungArts Foundation Honors Aaron Feltman
Aaron Feltman’s artwork is a thing of beauty. The Huntington High School senior has won his fair share of awards. He recently earned a new honor. The National YoungArts Foundation tapped him as one of its Merit Award winners, putting the teenager in elite company.
Mr. Feltman is among 820 high school artists from 42 states selected from a group of 12,000 applicants submitting portfolios. “The National YoungArts Foundation identifies and supports the next generation of artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts; assists them at critical junctures in their educational and professional development; and raises appreciation for the arts in American society,” according to the organization’s website.
“I am extremely proud that Aaron is being honored by the National YoungArts Foundation as a Merit Award winner,” Huntington art teacher Kristin Singer said. “It’s an enormous achievement for a high school student. Throughout my four years of working with Aaron, he has always been a wildly motivated student who is deeply committed to his craft.”
Mr. Feltman submitted a portfolio of his strongest artwork for the National YoungArts Foundation competition. The portfolio consisted of a combination of observational and conceptual work.
“Aaron tremendously excels in both of these categories,” Mrs. Singer said. “As the technical artist, Aaron enjoys and excels in the task of observing and representing the world around him. He loves the challenge of developing compositions, rendering light and value and capturing color. As the conceptual artist, Aaron shares his great sensitivity to beauty in the world; many of his portraits look deep within the soul illustrating complex tensions such as clarity, anxiety, peace and damage.”
Winners of National YoungArts Foundation awards are invited to participate in regional programs in New York City from April 12-17, 2016. During this week, YoungArts honorees in the visual, literary, performing and design arts take part in a week-long intensive program and work with masters in their field. The talented young artists present their work through public performances and exhibitions at Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Live Arts and MoMA PS1, one of the oldest and largest non-profit contemporary art institutions in America.
“Aaron has truly been given a once in a lifetime opportunity with this honor,” Mrs. Singer said. “Throughout his high school career, Aaron has made a distinct effort to explore different facets of art with a strong interest in both fine arts and digital media. By the end of his senior year, he will have completed seven art classes in high school; classes he was able to squeeze into his academically demanding course schedule by not taking a lunch period for three years. He has greatly excelled in the arts due to this commitment.”
Mr. Feltman’s list of awards and honors ranges from the Huntington School District’s annual art show and the Long Island Media Arts Show to the Huntington Art Council’s High Arts Showcase and the Heckscher Museum’s Long Island Best Young Artists competition and exhibit.
In addition to his rigorous high school schedule, Mr. Feltman has also pursued numerous artistic experiences outside of the regular school day. He takes figure drawing, painting and sculpture classes at Huntington Fine Arts. At the Art League of Long Island, he attended open-studio figure drawing classes. In the summer of 2013, he participated in the HAC Portfolio program and the following summer he pursued his interest in animation by taking an online course at Animation Mentor, a professional program run by Pixar animators.
“Congratulations to Aaron and all of the faculty in the Huntington art department for everything they do to cultivate the talent of our young people,” said Sarah Loveland Gill, district director of fine and performing arts.