Culture, art and life-changing experiences are all on the agenda for four talented art students who have been awarded approximately $1,500 each in the Evelyn Lord Rumsey Scholarship Competition.
The winning students - Clifford Borress, Joseph Brittain, LindaBeth Nichols Flack and George Jorgensen - have decided to spend their winnings traveling to locations within the United States and abroad to pursue their artistic visions.
In contrast to previous years, this year's Rumsey Competition had four winners and resulted in the combination of a smaller grant, the Potenza, with the Rumsey grant to form a large sum of money to be divided among the four students.
Though Borress said the excitement was slightly lessened by of the number of winners, he appreciated the healthy competition.
"I'm glad that the other people won, because I think they worked pretty hard on their projects too," said Borress.
The original competition, which included nine students' work, was held in late February and called for art students with junior standing to design a proposal of up to $3,000 to travel anywhere in the world to further their understanding of art, culture and creation.
The award decisions took nearly three weeks of deliberation by all of the art department's full-time faculty, leaving many students waiting in anxiety over their future plans.
"I was pretty much going crazy waiting to find out," said Jorgensen.
The anticipation of the verdict merely sweetened the surprise, said Brittain, a double major in art history and studio art who will attend Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design in London, England.
The opportunity to visit London, the "center of the contemporary art world," as the chance to study at one of the most prestigious art schools in the world was promising, Brittain said. The program Brittain hopes to attend will employ practical techniques, ranging from photo to painting to sculpture, and will give students a hands-on curriculum in art.
In contrast, Nichols Flack has centered her proposal on a research-based approach to art. A dual major in sociology and photography, Nichols Flack designed her proposal around her interest in women's studies, opting to spend her time in Boston at one of several research centers, such as the Murray Research Center at Harvard University.
"I wanted to do something that would further the interests I already have," said Nichols Flack, who is currently researching the gendering process of adolescents in high school.
Borress, a photography major, found that the $1,500 prize changed his original proposal a good deal, one which included the purchase of one ton of tuna for his father's business and a documentary of the interaction between the consumer and the supplier. Borress compared the purpose of a middleman in a fish market to the interaction between the artist and the audience.
Instead, Borress is exploring a variety of options for his proposal, including a summer program at the School for the Visual Arts in New York City called "Summer Studio Residency." Although the residency includes only a small photography component, Borress believes all of the visual arts are equally important and has applied for the program at SVA for its all-encompassing nature.
Jorgensen, a sculpture major, decided to spend his allotment exploring his roots in Mexico. Jorgensen's mother is originally from Mexico City and Jorgensen plans to spend two weeks in August tracing the history of pre-colonial Mayan and Atzec art pieces.
For Jorgensen, as well as the other winners, the trip is not exclusively about the production of art, but about many other aspects of life.
"This trip is an opportunity to connect with my roots and my work," Jorgensen said.
The students will have an opportunity to display the artwork generated from the grant following the completion of their travels. The Rumsey Competition also includes a fall exhibition by all the winners in one of the galleries of the Center for the Arts.
