High school student Angelina Selkirk’s remarkable work of art, “My Stars,” was selected for the recent “Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at the Heckscher Museum of Art” gallery show. Selkirk was one of only 85 Long Island student-artists to be recognized, among more than 300 who submitted.

In Long Island’s Best, a prestigious and comprehensive arts-in-education program integrating Huntington’s Heckscher Museum and high school art classrooms in Nassau and Suffolk, school art teachers such as Deer Park’s Derek Mainhart partner with Heckscher Museum educators to help students find inspiration in works on view at the museum. These chosen works serve as springboards for the students to create their own original artwork in various media. The program culminates with a juried exhibition, the only one on Long Island to provide high schoolers the opportunity to display their artwork in an art museum.

“My artwork was inspired by Joseph Constantino’s photograph ‘Guggenheim with Calder,’ whose upward viewpoint reminded me of stars,” said Selkirk, who attended a special opening reception and awards ceremony at the museum. “Stars are important to me because I’ve moved around my whole life. Everything constantly changed but the stars and moon remained the same.”

Selkirk found the gallery exhibit and reception an eye-opener. “For the first time, I had a piece of my artwork hanging on a wall in a museum being viewed by so many people, next to so many other extraordinary pieces,” she said, describing the experience as “epic.”