MMFS’s Timothy Vaughn and Liv Hoffman are YoungArts 2015 Winners!

By Sharon Counts, Upper School Theater Teacher

MMFS upper school students are National YoungArts winners! I am so over the moon thrilled to share that the National YoungArts Foundation has awarded two of our upper school students with Merit Awards. Timothy Vaughn won two awards, one for Cinematic Arts and for one for Script Writing. Liv Hoffman won for Photography.

They will both receive a small financial award and they will be invited to attend YoungArts New York, April 27 – May 3, 2015. YoungArts New York is a week where students who have won Young Arts awards in all arts disciplines from all over New York State, come together in NYC for a week of mentorship and art making with masters in their fields. Being a part of the YoungArts family is an incredible honor and will lead to all sorts of possible future opportunities.

Tim submitted a 7-minute short film exploring an unexpected meeting of two very different people on a swing set. Tim says, “It explores themes of loss, grief and innocence.”

Liv submitted her whole portfolio, which consisted of various freedom tunnel images and portraits. Liv explained, “It was important for me to submit a variety of different kinds of images to show that I could shoot many different subjects. … to show diversity in my artwork.”

Excerpt of email announcing the Winners:

Today is the big day – the day we officially announce our 2015 YoungArts Winners.
Out of approximately 11,000 applications, we are recognizing 786 young artists for their outstanding work and accomplishments in at least one of ten disciplines across the literary, visual, design and performing arts. A complete list of the Winners is available here.

We are thrilled to welcome them to the YoungArts family – and our alumni network of more than 20,000 artists, many of whom have gone on to become leading professionals in their fields, including Doug Aitken, Josh Groban, Jenji Kohan, Andrew Rannells, Desmond Richardson and Kerry Washington.

This is such a HUGE, wonderful accomplishment for Tim and Liv. One that I am sure will inspire the rest of our students and will serve as a wonderful reminder of what is possible.