St. Petersburg art teacher's work part of exhibit after entering contest to motivate students

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A St. Petersburg art teacher entered a contest to motivate her students and now her work is on display.

For St. Petersburg High School visual arts teacher Rachel Koral's class, an exhibit in Sarasota holds a very special meaning.

"It's definitely one of the coolest things to happen in my career," Koral said.

Pictured: Rachel Koral

Koral is thrilled because her artwork was selected to be on display at the "Embracing Our Differences exhibit." Only 50 artist were picked out of 16,000 submissions.

"It really was mind-blowing," said Koral. "It's kind of one of those cool things now that I can say I'm an international artist."

The entries came from 125 countries and 44 states.

READ: Interactive and immersive art at St. Petersburg museum: 'Such a unique experience'

"The majority of our submissions come from the United States, but we have entries in this year's exhibit from Israel, Iran, India, the United Kingdom, Belarus, Ukraine, literally all over the world," Ben Jewell-Plocher executive director of Embracing Our Differences, said.

Koral entered the contest to motivate her students to do the same.

"I wanted to participate, to show them that if they can do it, I can do it to kind of prove that anything is possible," said Koral. "And kind of give them that little push and encouragement to get involved in an extracurricular activity."

Her artwork is titled "Writing on the Wall." She took photographs of her students, and had them write words to describe their positive and negative experiences at school.

"I scanned in their handwriting, and that's what's photoshopped on the wall. So you'll see positive messages about school and about the kids and about diversity. And going down the drain is negative things, about personal images and stuff," Koral explained.

READ: Artist spotlight program helps Tampa artist get exposure at Gasparilla Festival of the Arts

The experience has changed the lives of her students.

"I've learned a lot about digging deep into the meaning behind artwork," said Elle Orchard, student. "And I feel like she's an inspiration to me because of her artwork, such as the one she did here."

"She's like a trailblazer to us and like setting examples," said Xavier Licudine, student. "Very inspiring to us."

"It felt like a win for all of us," said Koral. "I was excited to show them. And they were also excited because they were kind of a part of it as well."

It's a unique opportunity to showcase art and what hard work can achieve. The exhibit will be in Sarasota until April 14.

For more information about the exhibit, click here.

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