William Cunningham earned both a Gold Key and a Silver Key at this year’s Vermont Scholastic Art Awards, with his ceramics piece The Illusion of a Monolithic Memory advancing to national consideration. Out of 707 submissions statewide, only 25 Gold Keys were awarded in visual arts placing William among Vermont’s top young artists. 

The Scholastic Art Awards is the nation's largest, longest-running, and most prestigious art competition for high school students. The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center hosts a month-long showing of the winners. The national winners were just announced and we learned his piece won a gold medal in ceramics and glass at the national level!

William’s artwork was also featured in Sundog Poetry’s publication of 2025 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate Emma Paris’s poem, Visual of Canis Lupus Abundance on Isle Royale. The poem explores the rise and fall of the wolf population, reflected by the piece's line lengths. William’s illustration brings that concept to life and the published print is now displayed outside Mrs. Hebert’s classroom, celebrating both artists’ work.