Freshman Leads USC Honors with Six Scholastic Gold Keys
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Upper St. Clair High School freshman Hayal Anavatan earned six Gold Key awards – the highest level of recognition – in the 2026 Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, leading all Upper St. Clair students this year.
Gold Key entries automatically advance to national adjudication, where they are considered for Gold Medal, Silver Medal, and scholarship awards. National Medalists are announced each spring and published at artandwriting.org.
In addition to her six Gold Keys, Hayal earned five Silver Key awards and one Honorable Mention, making her one of the most highly recognized students in the regional competition this year. Her award-winning work spans three categories: Painting; Digital Painting, Drawing & Collage; and Ceramics & Glass.
“I have loved experimenting with different art mediums since I was little, but my favorite one will always be painting, whether it's with acrylic paint or oil,” Hayal said. “I think it's the medium I have the most creative freedom and experience with to be able to express my ideas.”
Hayal draws inspiration from a wide range of sources.
“Sometimes it's something I see on the news that I think deserves attention and provokes an idea, or sometimes I'm just doing my homework and get a spark of creativity,” she said. “Lately, a lot of my inspiration comes from the inequalities in the world like wars, racism, and poaching animals.”
At Upper St. Clair High School, Hayal is enrolled in ceramics and fashion design classes and is an active member of the Art Club and Montage, the school’s literary arts magazine.
“I became interested in art when I was 3 years old, and ever since then, I never stopped creating,” she said.
Hayal also enjoys the challenge of competitive art opportunities, where she has earned significant recognition. In 2024, her artwork was selected by U.S. Rep. Summer Lee to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol for one year as part of the Congressional Art Competition. She has also earned honors in the NASA Student Art Contest in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
In addition, Hayal’s work has been featured in several exhibitions, including “Resilience and Revolution: Honoring Black History and Women’s History Through Art” at the Dentons Cohen & Grigsby Gallery in downtown Pittsburgh (2024), the Pittsburgh Cultural District Gallery Crawl (2023), and the Harlan Gallery at Seton Hill University (2022, 2023, and 2025).
Overall, seven Upper St. Clair students earned honors across visual art and writing categories.
ART AWARDS
Hayal Anavatan, grade 9
- Gold Key: What the Wall Remembers – Painting
- Gold Key: Eternal Bond – Digital Painting, Drawing & Collage
- Gold Key: Pressured – Ceramics & Glass
- Gold Key: The Future's Shadow – Digital Painting, Drawing & Collage
- Gold Key: The Illusion of Balance – Digital Painting, Drawing & Collage
- Gold Key: Mother Nature – Painting
- Silver Key: Growing Apart – Painting
- Silver Key: Heaven is Earned – Painting
- Silver Key: Cruelty in Costume – Painting
- Silver Key: Echoes – Painting
- Silver Key: Same Age, Different Lives – Ceramics & Glass
- Honorable Mention: Childhood Spark – Painting
Gabe Gracie, grade 10
- Silver Key: Tarnished moss – Ceramics & Glass
- Honorable Mention: Naturalia Vessel – Ceramics & Glass
Isabella Liu, grade 9
- Silver Key: Let’s Rock – Drawing
- Honorable Mention: Joy in the Unexpected – Drawing
Mahathi Devaki, grade 9
- Honorable Mention: Hope in Darkness – Digital Painting, Drawing & Collage
WRITING AWARDS
Naisha Agarwal, grade 7
- Honorable Mention: The Toy – Short Story
Grady Davis, grade 12
- Honorable Mention: Snake of Three Heads – Flash Fiction
Jules Vilkner, grade 9
- Honorable Mention: The Blossom – Speculative Fiction
An exhibition and awards ceremony for the regional art awards will be held on Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts & Kresge Theater. Student artwork will be on display from Feb. 25 through March 7.
The 2026 Pittsburgh Region Scholastic Writing Awards recognition ceremony will take place March 28 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse on Point Park University’s campus.
According to the program’s website, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards is “the nation’s longest-running, most prestigious recognition program for creative teens.” Open to students in grades 7–12, the program recognizes student achievement in 30 visual and literary art categories, including painting, sculpture, digital art, photography, short story, poetry and more.
All entries are judged through a blind adjudication process at the regional level, where works may earn Honorable Mention, Silver Key, or Gold Key recognition. Gold Key works advance to national judging. Since the program’s founding in 1923, all submissions have been evaluated using the same core criteria: originality, technical skill, and personal voice or vision.
- Fort Couch
- USCHS