Last Wednesday, May 16, students from all over Somerset County attended the Teen Arts Festival at Raritan Valley Community College to view submitted art from their peers and get instruction in different artistic subjects. Students who attended the festival included those who had submitted pieces for the show as well as those involved in their school’s creative or performing arts, such as choir and theater.

The Teen Arts Festival is a showcase for all different kinds of arts. The event is split into different sections, distinguished by interest, that involve workshops where students can work individually and in groups to create new pieces of art or simply get instruction from professionals dedicated to running the class. Some classes included visual arts, creative writing, music, and filmmaking classes, and many more.

While most workshops took place at specific time slots, students in school dance and theater programs put on live performances non-stop in RVCC’s theaters where other students could stop in and enjoy the performances between classes as they pleased.

Aside from the instructional, creative sessions, the Teen Arts Festival provided two “critique sessions” per section, where the student artists could receive feedback on their work after they were critiqued by a group of Adjudication Artists

While every piece that is submitted is critiqued, only about five of those pieces were picked by the Adjudication Artists to go on to states. Of the young artists who were chosen, one of Hillsborough High School’s own students, senior Caroline Pabst, was selected for her screenplay “Little Games,” which will be put into the running for a State Showcase Scholarship to honor her achievements and further her art education.

This being her first time attending the Teen Arts Festival, Pabst described being initially nervous, but with the help of the professionals leading the classes, she felt she learned a lot. The man running a visual arts class she attended was a small but successful film director and producer that gave Pabst some valuable advice.

“He told me to expand my knowledge by taking courses in what specifically I want to write about and become an expert in that first, rather than taking all writing classes,” Pabst said. “He taught me more about the business of art than the art itself, which is something I hadn’t really considered.”

This combination of young talent and older expertise plays a key role in consistently inspiring students to keep creating and pushing themselves in their artistic endeavors in the face of the prevalent depletion of arts programs in many areas. The Teen Arts Festival is an incredibly important event for local young artists to showcase their accomplishments, experience hands-on instruction, and improve their work with the help of professional critique: an experience unlike any other that opens the gateways to the rest of their artistic careers.