The piece is called "Picasso's inspiration." It's a still life depicting a framed Picasso-style figure and two African masks. Cubism meets tribal in hues of blues and browns.

"This person is an extraordinary draftsman," the museum director says. "They have an uncanny ability to make decisions about proportion and light. They've done a masterful job."

"For an eighth grader, this is pretty extraordinary."

The newest exhibit at the campus museum on Lawson Street showcases Durham's newest artists, even if some of them might not realize it yet.

"Durham's Finest," featuring the work of students in the Durham Public Schools, opens Sunday with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. It aims to show the development of the artistic process from kindergarten through 12th grade. Early entries show students learning basic principles. Later entries show them taking the basics and running with them as they find their artistic voice.

The show is tough to get into, with only four entries per school. By senior year, students making the show are likely considering majoring in art in college.

"Picasso's inspiration" was drawn by Nikki St. John, a student of art teacher James Hensley at Chewning Middle School.

Like the paintings in the museum's permanent collection hanging across the gallery floor, the drawings, photographs and sculptures in the student show come with wall cards that tell the name of the piece, student and teacher.

It's a small, but purposeful detail, says Mary Casey, director of the Durham Public Schools' K-12 arts education program.

For most students, the show is the first time their work will be exhibited outside their school's hallways. Three works -- one each from elementary, middle and high school -- will be awarded $50 prizes and displayed on the NCCU campus.

Derek Vereen's "Into The City" is a collage torn from magazine pages that shows a highway entering a big city landscape.

Teacher Pierre Jerome, in his first year at Hillside High School, assigned collages to help students appreciate Romare Bearden, an African-American artist of the Harlem Renaissance who worked in cartoons, oils and collage.

"It takes a lot of patience to find pieces of paper, the right color, to give the technique you're looking for," Jerome said. "What I want students to do really is compose, to use lines, to use color, to use shapes to construct a complete picture."

Vereen, 15, started drawing as a little boy when his father would hand him the comics pages from the Sunday paper.

"Art is a way for me to express myself," the 10th grader said. "I know a lot of people say that, but for me it really is. ... It really makes me feel good about myself."

His collage symbolizes the challenges people face.

"In life everybody goes through different levels; one of the biggest is going into a setting you're not used to," he said. "I live out in the country, so going into the city was a big thing for me."

Art is more than an exercise, said Casey, the schools' arts director.

"In art you're really teaching them how to see," she said. "If you want to know what something looks like, draw it."

Casey used to teach at Parkwood Elementary School and this week lingered over the youngest children's work in the show: family portraits in splashes of bright color.

At the elementary level an art teacher teaches an entire school, hundreds of children over a year. Years later, Casey remembers one student on a day they worked in clay.

"I had one little boy. I just remember he was so proud. He was so pleased with his clay he went skipping down the hall back to his class," she said.

"It was like, 'Yes! ... You reached him.'"