Bay High School Art Students Produce Award-Winning Work

BAY, Ark. — Fifteen years is a long time, especially when referring to a job.

“This is my 15th year, but some days it feels like 20,” Sherry Carmer, the Bay High School art teacher, said laughingly, adding that all those years have been spent at Bay, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Carmer said, though there have been challenges, the future of the Bay School District’s art program is bright, and the district is trying something new this year.

“I’ve always taught K-12, so that is something new where we have an elementary art teacher and a high school art teacher,” Carmer explained.

This year, the district employed a new model to provide students with art instruction. Carmer said it will allow her to expand the knowledge she imparts to her high school students, and she said that is crucial.

“People don’t understand that they need art, that everything they do, everything you do, involves art,” said Carmer. “You know, whether it’s the clothes that you pick out, the car you drive, there was an artist involved.”

Carmer said her classes provide her students with solace.

“It really depends on the student,” Carmer said. “I have some that have left and pursued art careers, and then, I have some that have left that just came to the art room as a way of… needing a place to calm down or to be a safe haven. It was just that it was just a happy place for them.”

But, according to Carmer, they also give those students a place to shine.

Six of Carmer’s high school students were invited to take part in the Inspired Exhibit at the Bradbury Art Museum. The exhibit, which invited students from 14 Northeast Arkansas high schools, ran in November and December 2025.

“We have participated in the Inspired Exhibit at the Bradbury Art Museum every year since its conception,” Carmer described of her students’ long-standing relationship with the museum, and they don’t return empty-handed.

“We’ve had 31 ‘Best of Show’ awards in that exhibit, and the kids love it,” Carmer continued. This school year was no exception.

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One of this past year’s winners shared a very unique concept through art. Carmer described the piece on display at the museum, which inspired her students’ work.

“Their art piece was about the flooding that happened in the subways in New York, and one of our students saw that, and she said, ‘It reminded me of how I would feel when all the tornadoes hit our community,’” Carmer recounted.

“She crafted this tornado out of chicken wire, covered it with dryer lint, and that was to represent all the stories that are strewn from places because of natural disasters,” Carmer continued to describe her student’s piece.

That creative work of art earned Bay High School freshman, Abigail Loggins, a “1st Place Best in Show” award. Carmer’s students also took home two other honors from the most recent exhibit.

Carmer expressed great pride in her students’ achievements, but also said she takes great interest in all of her students, whether they are there because of a love for art or because they love the atmosphere of the program.

“I always felt like, even though I love teaching both, I felt like they needed a different perspective,” Carmer concluded.

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