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EDWARDSBURG — An Edwardsburg student was recently recognized for her artistic talents.

Edwardsburg Middle School student Kayliee Seigel is the winner of Artsonia’s Artist of the Week contest, a voting competition held on Artsonia.com, the world’s largest collection of student art portfolios exhibiting almost 80 million pieces of student art.

Seigel received more than 1,000 online votes for her winning art piece.

When shew as asked about how she felt when she found out she had won, she said, “I was really excited.”

Seigel’s teacher, Christina Hartz, has been teaching art for the past 10 years.

“Watching [children] learn and experience new ways of creating their art makes me passionate about being an art teacher,” she said. “Right now, we are making clay whistles that actually function. They are sculpting and adding their personality to a basic whistle structure.”

When Hartz was asked about how it feels for one of her students to be recognized for their artistic achievements, she said, “It means our voices are heard through our artwork and our efforts.”

Seigel seems to appreciate art class.

“I get to make art and have a lot of fun,” she said.

Hartz is one of the many thousands of art teachers from more than 100 countries around the world who use Artsonia to showcase their student art, crowdsource lesson plans and help fundraise for their classrooms.

Artsonia lets family and friends of student artists create and purchase organic keepsakes from the student art, and then gives back 20 percent of all revenue to the local art classroom, officials said.

Artsonia developed Artist of the Week 10 years ago as a way to encourage teachers to submit student artwork and engage the school and community to vote on and recognize students for their achievements. Every week, Artsonia selects 12 random submissions in different age groups from artwork submitted the previous week. Voting is then open to the public for several days before the winner is announced.

Blick Art Materials donates a $100 gift certificate to the winning school and an individual $50 gift certificate to the student artist.

“Our mission at Artsonia is to bring communities together to celebrate children’s artistic expressions,” said Jim Meyers, CEO and co-founder of the company. “Artist of the week is a perfect way to get local schools, families and friends involved in the process of creating, recognizing and cherishing student art.”

For more information, visit artsonia.com.