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Thursday, March 28, 2024

The award-winning work of Mollie Shafer-Schweig, a senior in the Rindge School of Technical Arts, is shown in this poster.

Mollie Shafer-Schweig, a senior in the Rindge School of Technical Arts’ commercial design program, won national recognition for her design portfolio in the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers’ Scholastic Art Awards, it was announced today.

She earned a Massachusetts Gold Key, which was submitted to the awards program, where she earned a silver medal, said Justin T. Martin, spokesman for the Cambridge school district.

“The United States or even the world would be much more manageable and enjoyable if simplicity was the key to life,” Shafer-Schweig said. “I try to capture this within my work. I would hope that in seeing my artwork a viewer would gain a perspective or opinion — almost as if he or she was walking in someone else’s shoes.”

The alliance, an 87-year-old New York-based nonprofit founded by Scholastic publishers, identifies teenagers with exceptional artistic talent and brings their work to a national audience, providing scholarships as well as recognition. Taking submissions from students in grades 7-12 from around the country in January, the alliance judges ranked Shafer-Schweig’s — eight pieces including identity design, a two-color brochure, discrimination poster series, editorial redesign promotional campaign, bill of rights poster series, audio CD redesign, abstract still life and promotional book cover poster — tops.

“I truly believe that as long as the citizens of the world embrace different opinions, the world will become an easier, more rewarding place to live,” the artist said. “Even the pieces in my portfolio that do not blatantly express the effects of discrimination intend to make the viewer think differently and even more creatively. In creating these works I hope that viewers will question social norms and break free from the ordinary, be inspired to change and be changed.”

The Rindge School of Technical Arts is the city’s public career and technical school.