Celebrating the artistic abilities of teens in the state, the Governor’s School for the Arts selects 100 students in the fields of visual arts, dance and music to attend a three week camp at Davis & Elkins College.

This year, Rebekah Anderson, a junior at Pocahontas County High School, joined those students to enhance her artistic prowess.

“We started with pencil drawings and then we kind of got into negative space, where you draw the space around the object,” Anderson said. “Then we got into painting and we also did printmaking and a ceramics class.”

Anderson, a painter, said the camp helped her realize which media she liked to work with the most.

“I’ll admit, I’m better at drawing and painting than I am with ceramics,” she said.

As the finale for the camp, the art students collaborated on a large painting of coal miners, to go with the theme, “The Way We Worked,” the Smithsonian traveling exhibition.

“Our teacher cut this picture into squares and then we had to a take a bigger [canvas] and draw that,” she said. “We each got a piece and it was kind of like a puzzle.”

The camp culminated with the Showing of the Arts celebration.

Anderson, daughter of Bob and Marsha Anderson, says she plans to study art in college, but isn’t sure where, yet.

“I’m still looking for a good art school or a college with a good art program,” she said. “The Dean at D&E said if any Governor’s School of the Arts kid wants to come to Davis & Elkins College, they automatically get $5,000. It’s a possibility, but I’m still looking around.”

As part of the camp, the students went to Charleston to visit with Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, who posed for a picture with them on the Capitol steps.