By: Alivia Evans

The Vandalia, Wesleyan’s art & literature journal, scholarship, is out! The winners have been selected and awarded. The Vandalia Art Journal is Wesleyan’s official literary arts journal of West Virginia Wesleyan College (WVWC), featuring poetry, prose, and visual arts. Second-semester freshman Jayna Fabery is the winner of the Visual Arts showcase. She is chosen as the cover of the journal, so the question is what made her choose this winning piece.

Jayna was searching for inspiration and found a piece that struck gold. She came across a photo of someone holding broken glass, and right then, an idea formed. As soon as her concept was clear, she got right to work. She states she “worked really long and hard on her piece, going through many trials and errors until I was content.” Her design came from her personal struggles, highlighting the times when she had hidden her pain from the public while struggling on the inside, creating a realism drawing of herself holding glass and using the reflective material to symbolize her internal struggles. The water in the piece distorts the reflection, while blood on the figure’s fingers, from gripping the glass to demonstrate the pain to the audience. In that sense, this artwork encourages viewers to reconsider initial assumptions about others. She hopes that piece also resonates with people who have concealed or felt their pain unnoticed, helping them feel seen and less alone. Jayna conveys this message through a change in reflection. Jayna wants to reiterate to the readers and Judges of the contest that she feels so honored and appreciative to be the winner of her art section of Vandalia’s contest and is ecstatic to be chosen as the journal’s cover.

Ultimately, Jayna Fabery’s award-winning piece does more than secure a place on the cover of The Vandalia Art Journal. It invites viewers to pause, reflect, and look beyond surface-level assumptions. Through striking imagery and deeply personal inspiration, her work captures the often unseen reality of internal struggles. Drawing from her pain and transforming it into art, Jayna not only tells her own story but also creates space for others to feel seen. Her piece stands as a powerful reminder that what lies beneath the surface can be far more complex than it seems, and even in brokenness, there is a voice worth seeing and hearing.