Kruczko is a Merit Award winner for art
Many talented students have gone through the Seaford Public Schools system and attained great success in life. Seaford High School senior Jessica Kruczko, who has recently won a prestigious art award, may turn out to be one of them.
Kruczko was selected as a Merit Award winner in the Long Island Arts Alliance’s 2022-23 Scholar-Artist Awards program. The Arts Alliance hosts the competition along with various arts administrators in Long Island schools, Newsday and the New York Community Bank Foundation.
Kruczko was one of only 20 students selected for the award after she had submitted a portfolio of drawings, paintings and mixed-media artwork from her first three years of high school to the competition’s Visual Arts category.
Teachers who have had Kruczko in their classes said they were beaming with Seaford pride.
“She is one of those students that was very hard to teach, because everything I could teach her, she already knew,” Grant Weber, an art teacher at Seaford High, said. “Skills-wise, she is one of the most talented students I’ve ever had.”
Weber, who instructed Kruczko in both regular and honors-level drawing and painting, said that another one of her most admirable qualities as an artist is her work ethic. “Obviously, she is super talented, but she’s also hard-working and wants everything to be perfect,” Weber said.
He described Kruczko’s art as “eclectic,” and added that he is exceptionally proud to have seen her grow as an artist.
Kruczko entered the contest for the award during the summer, after learning about it and realizing that her portfolio matched every requirement.
She is a lifelong Seaford resident, although before she came to Seaford High, she was enrolled at St. William the Abbot, Jackson Avenue. From a very young age, she always had an interest in art, Kruczko said.
“When I was very young, all I would do is draw,” she said. “And then I’d go on the Internet and see these much bigger things, and I’d think, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to be able to do that.’”
Inspired by what she saw on the Internet, Kruczko dedicated much of her personal time growing up to becoming a better artist.
While attending Catholic school, she said she took advantage of an art period that consisted mostly of just letting students practice drawing. But much of her skills were learned outside school, at the Seaford Library’s “Art with Amy” program, led by renowned Long Island art teacher Amy Vail.
“Eventually I got good enough to help her teach some of the classes,” Kruczko added.
While Kruczko dabbles in all kinds of visual art, such as drawing, oil pastels, and so on, painting is her favorite.
Kruczko was a freshman when the pandemic first struck, and art was one of the activities that may have actually benefitted from the shutdowns.
“It gave me a lot of free time to do whatever I wanted,” Kruczko said. “School would usually get in the way of projects I wanted to do just for myself. I think I improved during the pandemic.”
In applying for the award, she had to submit 10 images of art she had created over the years both in and out of school, with certain guidelines attached, such as being drawn from real life or demonstrating that the artist took a risk to make it. Kruczko also had to submit a short writing sample explaining how art has impacted her and why she does it.
“I wrote that it gave me a sense of freedom, a sense of independence,” she said. “I could make something that was all my own. I didn’t have to go to Party City to buy a mask — I could make one. I didn’t have to buy a painting for my room — I could paint one.”
Many of Kruczko’s paintings consist of dark, Halloween-esque imagery, and they carry a haunting beauty, although she does have quite a few which are bright-colored and more psychedelic in nature.
Kruczko said she doesn’t know where she will attend college, but wants to study fine arts. She will be honored for the Arts Alliance Award in a ceremony next June.
