Tippecanoe student makes waves in the art community
Tipp City is no stranger to being the home of several talented creators and is constantly thriving with artists and exciting events. Among these creators is Tipp City High School student Emersyn Gorrell, who has recently taken steps toward her future as an artist. Emersyn has been creating and participating in art ever since she can remember. One of her first significant competitions was the Tipp City Area Art contest in her eighth-grade year. Since then, Emersyn has been working nonstop on projects and participating in contests challenging her incredible talent. The young artist has competed in various competitions in Ohio, including the Dayton TEDx art exhibition, “Go for the Gold” logo scholarship competition, and the Governor’s Art Show. One of her most successful was the Ohio Youth Art Monath (YAM) Flag Design Contest, in which she won and received a physical version of her flag design from the Ohio Art Education Association.
The process Emersyn goes through to enter a competition with one of her works takes a lot of hard work, determination, brainstorming, and thinking outside the box. For the flag competition in 2023, Emerson had to start with nothing but a prompt, “Your art, Your voice,” and using her voice, she created a design that spoke to young artists everywhere. Emerson explained how she first sketched the flag and said, “I ended up tracing over my sketch digitally and coloring it all in the night before it was due.” When inspiration strikes, there’s no warning.
Digital art isn't Emerson’s only medium of choice; she’s also experimented with other types. However, she makes her plans digitally before taking her next steps. Each process is unique. For the Governor’s Art Show, Emerson explained, “I had to gather around four to seven monster cans collected from the Tippecanoe Marching Band as well as my coach, and I had to cut them with reinforced rubber gloves and strong scissors and used hot glue to attach each cut string of monster to a wire base shaped like a head and lastly submitted it to a specific website for critique and competition. I ended up making it only to round two of three, but it was still a great experience.”
Emersyn is constantly excelling and creating, even outside of competition events. Recently, she competed in the YAM flag design competition for 2024 and placed second. In addition to competing in all of the competitions she did last year, Emersyn was also accepted in the Yeck Scholarship program. In this program, she is taking free art classes with high schoolers at the Dayton Art Institute to improve her skills further. Emerson offers the advice of never giving up on your dreams and that there's always someone out there who will appreciate your art - it’s just a matter of maintaining the courage to keep creating it.