100 Years of Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Alumni: Elizabeth Lide

Welcome back to our OOM series dedicated to spotlighting those who have participated in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards over the past 100 years. Every week leading up to the national Awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall in June, we will be sharing the stories of some of the program’s incredible alumni whose lives have been impacted by the Awards.

With Mother’s Day this coming weekend, we are excited to spotlight Elizabeth Lide, a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards’ alumna, visual artist, and mother of a talented daughter who, just like her mom, is a recipient of a Scholastic Art Award.

As a student in the early 1960’s in Winston-Salem, NC, Elizabeth shied away from taking art classes because the subject was not held in high regard by the school she attended, nor its students. But by her senior year, Elizabeth stopped caring what others thought and signed up for an art class. She soon found a cheerleader and mentor in her teacher, James Hite, who introduced her to the Scholastic Awards, eventually leading Elizabeth to receive a National Gold Medal for her portfolio in 1965.

Since winning her Gold Medal, Elizabeth went on to study at the University of Georgia, earning a BFA at the Lamar Dodd School of Art and an MFA at Georgia State University Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design. After receiving her degrees, Elizabeth worked as a graphic and package designer for Raymond Loewy in New York City and design director of Art Papers magazine. She taught art at The Paideia School and, as an adjunct professor, at Georgia State University, Atlanta College of Art, and Agnes Scott College.

In 2014 Elizabeth became a full-time visual artist and creates mixed media drawings, objects, and installations, some of which explore the placement of ordinary objects in new contexts. She has been awarded artist residencies at MacDowell, VCCA, MASS MoCA, Hambidge, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre and was a recipient of a Working Artist Project Fellowship from MOCA GA. Her drawings and artists’ books are in museum, public, and private collections. She is represented by Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta.

While she still remembers being recognized on stage at her high school and on local television for her achievements, it wasn’t until 2014 when Elizabeth’s daughter Emma Ming was honored at Carnegie Hall and received a National Silver Medal with Distinction for her portfolio and an American Visions Award that Elizabeth truly understood the importance of the Awards and just how much receiving that recognition as a teen had encouraged her. The validation from the Awards also had an impact on Emma Ming, who is now a working artist as well, just like her mother.

“Although I remember the feeling of winning a gold medal for my portfolio and the boost in confidence that it gave me, thoughts of Scholastic had faded until, many years later, my daughter entered her work in the much sought after Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Watching Emma Ming on the stage of Carnegie Hall and seeing her work in two Scholastic exhibitions around the city was thrilling. Certainly, by 2014 the awards had become much more competitive and the celebratory events much more elaborate than they had been in 1965.”

In reconnecting with the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Elizabeth also felt compelled to reconnect with her high school art teacher, hoping to thank him for encouraging her to participate in the program and setting her on the path of pursuing the arts. Sadly, Mr. Hite passed away before they could ever reconnect, but in one final gift to his student, his passing inspired Elizabeth to reach out to her 89-year-old former college design professor, and she recently traveled to Mexico to visit and thank him personally for his role in her success.  

To learn more about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, please visit artandwriting.org. And be sure to return to On Our Minds next week for our next alumni spotlight!