New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Arte’s artsy Copycat Contest
Community group coaxes and coaches creativity during COVID
Gotta love Arte Inc.’s Copycat Contest, which inspired children and parents during an otherwise dispiriting year. Arte is a New Haven nonprofit cofounded in 2004 by Daniel Diaz & David Greco to create positive change for the Latino community. It runs after-school and Saturday youth programs, conducts college-bound road trips and college-readiness programs and has awarded more than $93,000 in scholarships as it organized dozens of events, exhibits and cultural programs. Its programs, including music and vocal lessons, are free.
In March, Arte converted programs to virtual due to youknow-what.
“During the months following the shutdown, we called families in our programs to gauge needs and the students’ social emotional well-being,” Greco said. “We found many students really suffering from the effects of the pandemic and the isolation they were experiencing.”
So, among other outreach efforts, Arte decided to run a contest for the families it helps.
“Our goal was to come up with fun and interesting virtual programs to help students and families ‘escape’ for a little while,” Greco said in an email. “We thought families could work together to create copycat entries (of artistic works) and performance challenges and have fun in the process. We had an excellent response from the entrants, saying how much fun they had.”
The arte-inc.com results are visually impressive and sometimes a hoot. Sometimes imitation is the sincerest form of admiration.
A Melanye Morales offering shows a youthful approximation of a portrait by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, earning a tie for third place.
A Cole Morgan-Berry pose copies the subject of a Picasso painting called “Boy With a Pipe.”
The winner was Kaleb Diaz’s recreation of another Kahlo self-portrait, and second place went to Naomi Rivers for her version of a painting by Patssi Valdez.
“We got a kick out of the excellent creative and fun
entries,” Greco wrote. “We ended up with ties and close calls, so we added prize money so more kids could win. We also purchased Amazon gift cards
for every eligible entry. Every student gets a minimum of a $25 gift card.”
Also among the treats is Adrian Guzman’s recreation of Diego Rivera’s
“The Flower Carrier.”
The Copycat Contest was judged by Marta Moret, Daniel Fitzmaurice, Richard Stephen and Nancy Roldan Johnson.
Votes for the Performance
Challenge were collected on Arte’s website, where one can see the entries that include first-place vocals by Gabriella Xavier and top instrumentals by the Rodriguez family horns.