The UW Simpson Center for the Humanities recently announced its Spring 2017 Awards to support work during the 2017-2018 academic year. Three people from the School are involved in these projects.

The School and Jacob Lawrence Gallery are pleased to announce a $20,000 grant from the Art Works program of the National Endowment for the Arts, which will support the Jacob Lawrence Legacy Residency.

Three projects led by Associate Professor Kristine Matthews won 2017 awards in Wayfinding and Interactive Experience. A fourth project with Professor Karen Cheng as design lead won in Public Installation.

Erin Giffin, who completed her PhD this month, was chosen by the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences as the Graduate Medalist in the Arts. The medalists are selected from faculty nominations.

Ten students were recognized with awards at our Graduation Celebration on June 10. One of the students, Erin Giffin, also was the recipient of the Arts & Sciences 2017 Dean's Graduate Medal in the Arts.

Artist Trust announced the recipients of their 2017 Fellowship Award Program in a May 15 press release. Six of the sixteen selected artists are School alums. Each will receive an unrestricted award of $7,500. Congratulations!

In February, Jenny Sabin Studio won this annual competition from a pool of fifty firms that was narrowed down to five finalists. Her project, Lumen, is on display at MoMA PS1 beginning in late June.

Congratulations to Art History Associate Professor Haicheng Wang for receiving a 2017 New Directions Fellowship from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation! He will use the fellowship to pursue further study in several subjects.

Congratulations to Mark Randall (BFA Design 1984), recipient of a 2017 AIGA Medal! This prestigious honor is being awarded for "his singular dedication to diversity in design, and his tenacity in funding minority and economically disadvantaged design students."

Four alums — Senior Lecturer Timea Tihanyi, Katherine Groesbeck, Emily Pothast, and Juniper Shuey of zoe | juniper — have won 2017 grants from 4Culture.

The School is pleased to present the 2017 Anne Focke Arts Leadership Award to Beth Sellars. Curator, artist, museum leader, teacher, and public art manager, she embodies the power of arts leadership.

Professor Denzil Hurley is one of the 2016 MoNA Luminaries. Several School alumni, including three Professors Emeriti, were involved in these awards from the Museum of Northwest Art.

A number of named scholarships support thirty students this academic year. They will be recognized this autumn at a private event on October 26.

New graduate students started classes and were welcomed to the School in an evening event on September 28. We attract outstanding students with competitive financial packages built from a number of sources.

School alums did well this year in two local competitions. Three were finalists for the Neddy Artist Award, and two were nominated for a Stranger Genius Award. Barbara Earl Thomas won a Genius Award. A Neddy exhibit runs through Oct 23 with several events.

Miles Miller and Christoffer Hart learned in August that their Naloxone OD Rescue Kit, designed in their last quarter before receiving their BDes degrees, was a Silver category IDEA 2016 winner in this IDSA competition.

Brent Holland (MFA 2004) received a $10,000 Iowa Arts Council Artist Fellowship. He was one of five people selected for this year's awards. He is also an Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Iowa State University.

Two paintings by Kewei Zhu, who just earned his BFA in Painting + Drawing, have been selected for the 2016 HUB Director's Award. The paintings become part of the HUB Permanent Art Collection.

Ten students were recognized with awards at our Graduation Celebration on June 11. One of the students, Tzyy Yi (Amy) Young, also was the recipient of the Arts & Sciences 2016 Dean's Medal in the Arts.

Renee Erickson (BFA 1995) was praised in a late April 2016 bon appétit feature and then won a James Beard Award in early May.

We count three alumni and one faculty member who have received Creative Capital Awards with the most recent being this year.

April is upon us, mid-terms are around the corner, and we are now well into the final quarter of the year with spring break fading in our memories. Window shades filter the welcome sunshine as I glance up to view the Quad that is abuzz with activity...

On April 6, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the winners of the 2016 Fellowships for the United States and Canada. Painting + Drawing Professor Helen O'Toole is on the list. She and two other UW professors...

Art History Professor Estelle Lingo has been selected for two prestigious visiting professor positions. One is at Villa I Tatti in Florence, Italy, and the other is at CASVA, National Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC.

We have learned about several students from our Divisions of Art and Design recently receiving special recognition. Congratulations to all and a thank you to these organizations for supporting our students.

Maurice Woods (BFA Design 1995, MFA Design 2005) has been selected as one of two 2016 Fellows by the San Francisco chapter of AIGA because of his work with the Inneract Project. He will be honored at an event later this month.

United States Artists, an organization based in Chicago, announced this year’s USA Fellows on November 10, 2015. Among the 37 selected from over 400 nominees was Ayumi Horie (MFA 2000). It is a huge honor to be selected as a fellow, and each fellow receives an unrestricted $50,000 award. Learn more about our previous recipients.

Aside from teaching, faculty at the UW and in the School of Art + Art History + Design engage with their own practice through research and other activities beyond the classroom. Division of Design Professors Karen Cheng and Kristine Matthews are often active with such projects.

On October 16, Artist Trust announced the two winners of their 2014 Arts Innovator Awards, and Rodrigo Valenzuela (MFA 2012) was one of them. As it says in the Artist Trust press release, each winner “will receive $25,000 in unrestricted funds for originating new work, experimenting with new ideas...