Consider how to blend imagination, ideas, or memory to create a work of art that gives others a chance to understand your experiences through your own style of personal visual storytelling or expression.

Sample prompts for youth artists include the following:

• What does nature mean to you?
• What does nurture mean to you?
• How do you nurture nature?
• How do you nurture yourself?
• How does nature nurture you?
• Reflect on a time and place where you felt nurtured or cared for…
• Is there a particular place in nature that feels like home to you? How does this place nurture your sense of belonging?
• What role does nature play in your daily life?
• What rituals, practices, or traditions do you have that involve connecting with nature?
• Consider the ideas of change, growth, and renewal in your life.

We encourage students to personally respond to this year’s Young Art theme by harnessing their own ideas and creativity. Consider how to turn ideas into a visual work, then choose an art media for the translation.

• Objects (Still Life)
• Environment (Landscape or Interior View)
• Figurative: Body language or facial expression (Portrait)
• Abstraction of color, shape or line
• And more…

Consider how the elements of art and principles of design can support decision-making and editing.

• Elements of Art: (color, value, line, shape, form, texture, and space)
• Principles of Design: (rhythm, unity, emphasis, movement, contrast, pattern, and balance)

All San Diego County and Tijuana region youth (from K–12 public, private, or home schools) are invited to submit works via an adult representative for consideration. Works submitted may be executed in two or three-dimensional media and must meet the Young Art 2025 Guidelines for Submission to be considered. A broad variety of media is encouraged including youth painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, digital media, video, mixed media, collage, sculpture, fiber arts, artist books, etc.

Complete information on this process will be available in Fall 2024. Digital submissions will be open December 2, 2024, through December 20, 2024. Please refer to the Young Art 2025 Important Dates to Remember for a complete list of Young Art 2025–related dates.

A jury of San Diego Museum of Art curators, including Anita Feldman, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs; Kara Felt, Ph.D., Lawrence S. Friedman, Curator of Photography; and Rachel Jans, Ph.D., Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, will select the works of art to be exhibited in Young Art 2025: Nurture and Nature. These works of art will be selected on the basis of visual elements, originality, age appropriateness, interpretive connection to the exhibition theme, and craftsmanship.

Participating educators, adults, and youth representatives will be notified by email whether or not their students’ works of art have been selected for exhibition in Young Art 2025. Notification emails will be sent on or before January 20, 2025.

Students selected for the Museum’s exhibition will be invited to a celebration for Young Art 2025 artists, families, adult representatives, and educators on April 3, 2025.

Digital invitations to the reception will be sent to the adult representatives of exhibiting students who submitted the works of art.