On Feb. 4, the Pistons held their 15th annual scholarship for art and poetry at Detroit Institute of Arts Theatre. From Communication and Media Arts, seniors Cheyenne Britton and Imari Dedrick competed in the program. Dedrick completed poetry. The event’s theme was “Past, Present, and my Future.”
First-place winners receive $25,000, second place $15,000 and third place $10,000 for poetry. For the poetry slam, each person will have two minutes to say their piece. Dedrick was the third contestant to go on stage and perform.
Britton competed in the art competition. For the art contest, each person art piece was platform in front of everyone. Five hundred random people selected the best art piece. Each contestant presented their art piece in front of the whole theatre.
After the presentations of the art and poetry, it was the time to announce the two winners of the scholarship.
Dedrick placed second in the poetry slam. From the look on her face, she was amazed by the win.
“It felt honorable to be chosen from our school,” she said. “I was absolutely nervous, I had panic attacks throughout the when I thought of performing in front of a large crowd. My teacher Mr. Stokes pushed me to keep on going.”
Dedrick’s next goal is to get into Morgan State University.
“I want to go into business administration so afraid that I take my knowledge and put it into the field that I want to work in which is the makeup industry the beauty industry,” she said.
Even though Britton didn’t win in the art competition, she kept her head high and still focused on her craft.
“So, even though I didn't win, it really showed me to perspective that I am not the best artist in the world, but I'm still a really good artist, and I still lived up to my potential but there will always be other people competing for that same exact thing that I want,” Britton said. “It will always be people that have taken art classes or have gone out and found someone to teach them how to do what they need to do, and me being a self taught artist, that's going to take a lot more work for me to do, but I am completely 100% down in debt, because every Bob Ross started from a failure.
“Any good artist finds their way and knows that just because they don't win one competition doesn't mean that they, their art is bad, or that their art doesn't have monetary value in that. And I don't care if I have to enter 100 competitions just to lose one or win one, I will keep going because my dream to become an animated show creator, or my dream to create an animated show on Netflix or wherever I decided to go or be a well known artist that doesn't die, because I lost a scholarship.”
