Nixa Art students entered an art show that has been going on in the Aetos Center. Over 200 art pieces from Nixa, Ozark, Republic, Branson, and Willard competed in the Central Ozarks Conference art show. The show was comprised of the best pieces from the surrounding COC schools. Abby Martin won for the piece “Burnt Out.” She has been doing art since she was in intermediate school.

“I have been doing art in school since 6th grade when we were first able to choose classes. I took art each year of Junior High and have taken art foundations and Painting one through three in high school. School wise I have been doing art for the past 6 years. In my life though I can remember really starting when I was around 9, so for about 9 or 10 years.” Martin says.

Martin’s sister was the one who sparked her love for art.

“My sister was the one that got me started in art actually. Once I started I just couldn’t really stop, and having a supportive family made me want to keep getting better. I really just started out drawing in an extra sketchbook my sister had. The first things I drew were cartoons; they were also one of the things that made me get into art.” Martin said.

There were seven categories that Nixa was placed in, and 3D Best in Show was one of them. Micah Little a senior at Nixa High School entered and got first place for his art piece titled “Electric.” Little likes to make artwork for fun and not just to win,

“Well, it always comes as a sort of shock. I never really make artwork to win, I mostly make them for fun. I think it is cool that I won, but in all honesty, I feel like there are people who are more invested and try much harder to win than I do. There are a lot of instances where I will look at other projects people made, and they clearly have a lot more meaning. To be fair to myself, I am good at what I do, but I still can’t help but feel there are others more deserving,” Little said.

Little gets his art inspiration from all sorts of different places.

“My inspiration is tricky to explain since it comes from all sorts of places. I have always been a fairly ‘zoned out’ person, and I often get distracted by all kinds of things. However, it is a blessing in disguise, seeing as it often leads to unexpected ideas and inspiration,” Little said. “The synapses in my brain fire faster than I can handle the information, which leads to my thoughts crashing into each other, resulting in these jumbled-up thoughts. I will see something perfectly normal, but if I focus on it for too long, it reminds me of something else, which leads to another instance, and eventually, it ends up as something new. Take the crab for example. I was watching some random informative video on fiddler crabs, and they started going into detail about how they burrow with their claw. I then started to think of a construction site, and the equipment on it, which led to construction crabs, and the final result was a robot crab that consumes old cities to build a new city on its back.”