With the Arts Across Arkansas program, teachers can nominate their students to enter a preliminary work for submission.
Educators statewide are invited to submit nominations for the 2026 Arts Across Arkansas youth mentorship and recognition program. Selected high school students will be honored at the spring state finals ceremony, with cash prizes awarded in each medium.
Eligible categories include music composition, dance choreography, literary arts, visual arts, photography, and film. Students must be enrolled in an Arkansas high school, and educators may nominate multiple students.
Arts Across Arkansas encourages, enhances, and expands students’ original thoughts, processes, personal experiences, and artistic abilities. The goal of Arts Across Arkansas is to give high school students the opportunity to be rewarded for their original creative works.
With the Arts Across Arkansas program, teachers can nominate their students to enter a preliminary work for submission. Multiple students from one school may submit for the preliminary round in their selected medium of music composition, dance choreography, literary arts, visual arts, photography, and film. Students can submit to multiple media.
Teaching artists from the Arkansas Arts Council’s Arts in Education (AIE) Roster will then judge the applicants in their respective fields, narrowing the selection of applicants to 5-10 as finalists per medium. After the selection is made, an AIE artist will spend time virtually or in person with each finalist, mentoring and guiding the student as they go through their creative process with the work they originally submitted. Students may change, edit, or redo their work before submitting the final product for the state finals.
This mentoring process will encourage students to discover the hurdles of creative, original work while enhancing their problem-solving abilities, all while remaining in their own creative space.
The program culminates in a state finals event to be held in the spring. Cash prizes are awarded during the event. Students must be present at the finals event to qualify for cash prizes.
Nominations are due 11:59 PM, January 5, 2026.
If a student placed first last year, they are not eligible to participate this year. The Arkansas Arts Council does not accept submissions created indirectly or directly by AI (artificial intelligence).
Program Benefits
- The opportunity to create original work and receive feedback from an Arkansas Arts in Education professional
- Mentorship with a professional artist in their chosen medium
- Presenting their original work in the state finals event
- Cash prizes for the top three submissions of each medium
For more information, visit www.arkansasarts.org or contact Matt Boyce at matt.boyce@arkansas.gov.
