Jr. Judges Panel

April Bachtel is a visual artist residing in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised on a small wooded farm near Akron, Ohio. April studied Painting and Art Education at Kent State University and Painting and Drawing at the University of Tennessee. Her practice mixes the languages of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work regionally and nationally in the United States.

Since 2022 she has been art handling for Porter Art Services in the greater New Orleans area and the Southeast region of the United States. She is so honored to be able to work every day with art and the people who care about it. She values cultural stewardship and sees its practice of care to be much akin to values she nurtured during the years she focused on teaching. She has taught art education to all ages (pre-k to college to senior citizens). She enjoys teaching children and young adults because their imaginative well is seemingly bottomless, and their self-consciousness has yet to fully form.

Why do you feel it’s important for young people to participate in the arts? She believes it’s crucial for young people to participate in the arts. To deny or limit education in the arts would be a complete disservice to students who will need to create, interpret, and communicate. These are basic components of human life, and are the backbone of a good arts curriculum. As a friend said recently, “if we do not teach children to create, they will destroy.” April can’t wait to see the K-12 art fields submissions!

Jacob Lehmann is an American artist from Clemson, South Carolina. Born and raised in Southern Appalachia, Lehmann has an affinity for place and the socio-cultural influences that landscape has on the people that live there. “ I am interested in dissecting my own complex identity through the lens of when, where, and how I grew up. I like to collage together my queer, southern, Appalachian, American, and millennial identities and how my relationships with my family formed who I am today.” He considers his work at the intersection of painting and sculpture. Lehmann received his BFA in Visual Art from Clemson University in 2018 and received his MFA in Studio Art from the University of Notre Dame in 2024. Lehmann is currently a Lecturer at Augusta University in Studio Art Foundations.

Why do you feel it’s important for young people to participate in the arts? I believe it’s important for young people to participate in the arts because it allows them an opportunity to see the world around them. Art is a way we as people communicate our thoughts, feelings, struggles, and celebrations with one another. Art tells the truth, and when you tell the truth, people come together.

As a graduate of the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, with a degree in Crafts and a degree in Art Education, I am passionate art educator and artist living in the Washington DC area for the past 24 years, focused on creating opportunities for the youth in our community using a variety of medium and a broad range of materials. My hope is to encourage future artists to create their destiny. I feel that the arts allow for a young mind to explore the possibility of something new and something great that their imagination and reality have created in a tangible way. To be able to see your thoughts and feelings right before your eyes is a pleasure. Making something from what you thought was just a thought to the reality of a ‘thing’ is beautiful. It’s about love for your thoughts and love for what comes from you. It's about love in the beginning and the end. I love my students and my community. I hope I can facilitate that same love.