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The Arts Beat is a weekly deep-dive into Memphis arts, music, dance, theater, fashion, film and events. Keep scrolling for a roundup of the best arts and culture stories from the week. Have a story idea? Send it to eperry@dailymemphian.com.
 “Young Dolph” by a senior at Cordova High. Acrylic on canvas. (Elle Perry/The Daily Memphian)
I watched three young Memphis artists on Wednesday, each walk out of the Pink Palace Museum and Mansion with $150 worth of donated art supplies.
These were the Best of Show winners in the Memphis Museums of Science and History’s fourth annual Student Art Contest. Memphis and Shelby County students were invited to create their “portraits of Black Memphians,” working in everything from digital illustration to mixed media.
A senior at Cordova High won Best of Show for 10th through 12th graders for her Cubism-inspired acrylic painting of rapper Young Dolph.
A seventh grader at Maxine Smith STEAM Academy won Best of Show for seventh through ninth graders for her digital illustration of singer Lillie Mae Glover.
A fifth grader at Peabody Elementary won Best of Show for fourth through sixth graders for her mixed-media work of singer Carla Thomas.
The works of the more than 80 students will be on view through April 30. Nine students received Honorable Mention nods. The remaining students received certificates and a thank you for their participation. All received encouragement to participate in next year’s contest.
 “Memphis Minnie” by an 11th grader at Cordova High. Acrylic on canvas. (Elle Perry/The Daily Memphian)
I stood in a room of about two dozen arts administrators on Thursday at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens. Media members received data on the arts scene and had the opportunity to network with and get story ideas from organization leaders.
It struck me how many arts organizations locally are youth-serving. Some are obvious: Memphis Youth Symphony Orchestra with its talented instrumentalists. Young Actors Guild with its talented performers. At Carpenter Art Garden, young people in Binghampton not only learn to create art, including the beloved Grizz hearts that dot yards across the city, but they also learn to grow and sell produce weekly.
Sometimes it’s less obvious. RiverArtsFest produces a juried arts festival every year, drawing local, regional and national artists. Throughout the year, the all-volunteer organization facilitates professional artists teaching art in schools.
One of my favorite parts of my job when profiling an artist is learning about their origin story. There are two diverging paths: the artist who came from an artistic family and the artist who picked up art somehow by osmosis.
Too late, I realized that my creativity didn’t spring from nowhere.
I wish I still had the drawing, but one of my dad’s prized possessions was a contest-winning drawing he completed of the Hernando de Soto Bridge while attending Hamilton High in the 1970s.
My mother, in her later years, drew on any piece of paper she could find. Animated-style characters. She created wreaths, too. I assumed she just doctored up existing creations. Later, I realized she collected every twig, fashioned them together expertly, and applied paint and other flourishes, like chandelier beads, scarves, silk flowers, ribbons.
When I showed her the wall hanging I created in a local workshop, she told me how her mother had a loom. I assumed that the grandmother I had never met must have used the loom for practical reasons. Probably making clothes or something to use around the house.
I asked my mother in a subsequent conversation what my grandmother made.
Wall hangings, she answered.
Wall hangings, just like me.
My elementary school-age niece, several days after, unprompted, showed me the cardboard loom she made in her art class. She was working on a wall hanging for my sister’s birthday.
The same niece, a few years earlier, won an art contest at her school. Her drawing wound up being displayed on an electronic billboard on Tillman Street.
There are lots of young artists in the city, in every medium you can think of: visual art, music, dance, theater, literature, fashion, film, food.
Many of them are receiving the support they need to become older and senior artists someday. All of the artists and support systems can use your patronage to fly even higher.
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