PLATTE COUNTY – Junior Afton Kelley and senior Alexis Elmore from Guernsey-Sunrise High School and freshman Lily Nichols from Wheatland High School all won awards this spring for their art projects in the Arts Symposium Art Contest.

The projects were so exemplary that each of the students had pieces of artwork chosen to be on display at the Governor’s Mansion in Cheyenne.

Afton Kelley

Born in Cheyenne, Kelley has grown in many areas of her life including athletics and art. It seems that adversity has accompanied her journey, but the smile continues to remain a solid fixture on her face.

Two of her passions are basketball and volleyball and the first year she played, she was hooked. With her mother, Mindy Kelley who was an “in-house” coach, she had high hopes. Injuries, however, have stolen portions of every year through her junior year.

She remains positive and looks forward, not focusing on the past.

She loved the benefits of a small school because she says that “everybody knows everybody.” 

“We are a pretty tight community, and my class in particular,” she said. “We stick together like a weird family. As for personal adversity, I have never made it through a full basketball season except for junior high.”

Although Kelley is still a year away from graduation, she is leaning toward a nursing degree, but art will be something that has been like therapy for her in the times when her body just can’t respond on the athletic field.

The piece that won the honor of being chosen for display at the Governor’s Mansion was a charcoal piece that depicted the X-ray view of a human portrait. 

“My top two things to work with are charcoal, if I am doing black and white, and colored pencils, if I am using color,” she said. “For the most part I taught myself, but in seventh and eighth grade when Mrs. Carter was here, she taught me how to do the colored pencils.”

She entered eight different pieces this year to the contest.

“I entered one sculpture and the rest were drawings,” Kelley said. “All of them except for my sculpture and one of my drawings got a first-place ribbon. I got a paper telling me that I was nominated for the Congressional Award which is the highest award you can get.”

Her drawing, which was supposed to have her drawing featured in Cheyenne, had bad news tag her once again.

“I’m not going to have that picture displayed,” she said. “What happened was I got disqualified when my mom accidentally closed the drawing in the door on the way to the school and it ripped the mat. The picture didn’t get damaged, but the matting did and so they disqualified it because the mat had a tear.”

She takes it in stride and has learned many life lessons that may sink a lesser young woman, but Kelley remains focused on the positive and stays rooted in hope.

Alexis Elmore

Elmore, born and raised in Hartville, has grown up with an appreciation for nature and a passion for art.

As she grew up admiring the natural artwork around her, she also wanted to have a hand in creating and preserving some of the beautiful things that she’s seen.

“I just liked expressing what I loved about life,” she said. “I love horses and so I just wanted to draw them with detail. Things like their bridles and halters and the ornamentation on them that are also so beautiful.”

She is known for her preciseness and her exactness to scale and is obsessive about making sure her proportions are spot on. She may have also gained her keen eye while taking care of her own horses, “Partner” who is a 28-year-old Red Roan and a 14-year-old Tennessee Walker named “Tingo.”

“I work mostly with pencil and sketching, although I do charcoal occasionally,” Elmore said. “But that is so messy that it’s not really my favorite. I’ve also painted a little bit and haven’t done oils but have done acrylics and it’s one of my favorites too.”

A teacher by the name of Mrs. Green was mentioned as one of the teachers that really spoke into her life.

“Mrs. Green taught me how to really push the darks,” Elmore said. “That’s what I notice with a lot of other art. It has the potential to be super good, but they don’t push the darks. That’s the main thing about drawing.”

Elmore is a senior heading toward the University of Wyoming to major in political science and art. Although she is wanting to become an attorney, she says that she always wants to keep her art within reach as it is a passion that keeps her in touch with nature itself.

She is also multitalented, gifted in athletics and writing, as well as her art. Recently, this year she won third place in the Voice of Democracy speechwriting contest for southeastern Wyoming.

Elmore is an artist, a naturalist, a writer and somewhat of a philosopher who speaks wisdom as an old soul.

“Sometimes, it’s people telling you what you can’t do that drives you farther on,” she said. “Sometimes, words of people trying to stop you make you go a lot further than you thought you could.”

Her sketch of a partial rider on a horse was the piece chosen to be displayed at the Governor’s Mansion in Cheyenne and really showcases her tenacious attention to detail and precise pencil to paper techniques.

Lily Nichols

Nichols has been staking quite a reputation at Wheatland High School for her ability to set records and get to the state tournament in every sport she participates in. In the fall she medaled at state in cross-country, and as a two-sport fall athlete she also went to state and medaled in golf. In the winter sports season, she traveled to Casper with her varsity basketball team to the be a part of a team that won the State of Wyoming Consolation State Championship and now in track she has shattered records and has already prequalified to go to state in multiple events. She also has a talent for the domestic arts and has in her own right become quite a proficient seamstress.

What has also been a head-turner in her accomplishments has been her artwork. She is a skilled sketcher, but what came up big in the art contest this spring was a sculpture that Nichols did of her favorite animal.

“Honestly that was the first time I tried sculpting,” Nichols said. “I just kind of like giraffes and our art teacher told us that we had to make an animal sculpture and I thought with the neck of the giraffe it would be kind of like tall and majestic.”

Nichols is also an accomplished artist in her painting and enjoys painting with oils and with watercolors.

“I was really into Bob Ross for a while,” she said with a bit of a laugh. “I kind of pulled some of his ideas and put them into my own painting and one actually did well in the Wyoming State Arts Symposium. It is a lavender and yellow sunset with like a big cloud above the mountain. I think that won a blue ribbon.”

Her giraffe is now currently on display at the Governor’s Mansion in Cheyenne, so for a first-time sculptor Nichols has done rather well.

“It took me half of first semester to do it,” Nichols said. “All totaled, it was about a month and a half that I worked on it. I had to wrap it in wet paper towels after each session, but it actually dried out on me, so we had to hollow him out because if the walls are too thick in the middle, then the sculpture will explode in the kiln.”

Nichols also used a unique technique that didn’t involve glazing, but bronzing.

“It was this cool technique that my art teacher showed me,” Nichols said. “So, I used stain and a bronze powder mix and painted that over the giraffe. Even though it’s made out of clay, it looks and feels like bronze.”

Nichols was born in Woodbury, Minn., to parents who were both teaching and coaching.

“We bounced around quite a bit,” she said. “It was just depending on where my mom was coaching.” 

Nichols is the quintessential example of a child gleaning from her parents and has her dad Tony Nichols as her golf coach, her mom Sally Nichols as her basketball and track coach and also has taught her the domestic arts.

“I love to sew, and I do a lot of sewing for 4-H,” she said. “I learned it from my mom.”