ABOVE: Fairmont Senior Zoey Tasseff stands with her first place piece, The Watchful Blindness, at Wednesday’s Red Rock Center Student Art Show Open House.

FAIRMONT – For students across the area, March 25 to April 2 is their chance to showcase their artistic skills at the Red Rock Center for the Art’s Student Art Show.

Fairmont, Martin County West, North Union, Blue Earth, and Granada-Huntley- East Chain Schools had 48 students in grades 9 to 12 submit 60 pieces in 13 categories. These include acrylic, fiber arts, pastel, digital charcoal and colored pencil among others. Red Rock Center Executive Director Sonja Fortune said it’s a great way for artwork to get out into the community.

“It also gives the students a sense of confidence,” she said. “I think they feel it’s a neat experience being able to show in a professional gallery like the Red Rock Center, versus keeping their artwork in school and not going beyond the walls of the school.”

In addition to the traditional show, an open house Wednesday afternoon gave students the opportunity to interact with the public and see if they won a ribbon. Artists Alexandra Hurney and Ashley Jensen Haake scored the pieces Monday night before the exhibit was put together Tuesday morning.

The experience will end Thursday, April 3, with a workshop led by Haake. Fortune said it’s a good opportunity for artists to get together while also learning from someone with more experience.

“We encourage them to talk with the other schools about their creativity,” she said. “Some students will meet others interested in furthering the arts.”

By offering this opportunity, Fortune said they want to help student artists get a feel for showing their work in front of others.

“We want them to feel comfortable sharing their artwork and be proud of what they’re creating,” she said. “Creativity is a special thing. Each of us has some born creativity, and we should be proud to share our thoughts and our mindset. It’s a good way to release not only good feelings but bad as well, through artwork.”

For Fairmont Senior Zoey Tasseff, art is a way to express herself where words fail.

“I’m autistic, so I don’t typically find it easy to talk with people and express my emotions,” she said. “I found through art and painting and drawing it’s a very big way I express myself and my ideas in a language that can be universally understood.”

Two pieces were entered by Tasseff. One is a watercolor/mixed media called Tainted Currents which received third placed in the mixed media category. The painting features ying and yang symbolism, involving a perfectly healthy and skeletal koi fish swimming around opposite each other.

“A lot of my inspiration for my pieces comes from my mom,” Tasseff said. “She’s an environmentalist and has worked at a lot of different state parks. I’ve been first-hand to see the differences and the impact that pollution and different environmental disasters cause.”

The other, The Watchful Blindness, finished first place in colored pencil. It features a woman, with their upper face and head covered by a large butterfly. This piece also came from her love of nature, with a specific focus.

“I’ve always had a love for butterflies and moths,” Tasseff said. “When you can mix the beauty of the natural world and express it and emphasize it in a piece, it amplifies everything.”

Events like this are important to Tasseff. She said it is an important step to building community in art.

“To not only show the public the art of students and their future but also show students other artists and other people who are artsy like them and have the same kind of mindset as them,” Tasseff said.

Tasseff is enrolled at Minnesota State University Moorhead, with a major in Animation and Graphic Design.

“My goals for life are to be able to create art that is easily seen and can be enjoyed by many, many people,” she said. “My goal is to find a studio to work with, something to express myself in something that I love.”