BIG ARTS Awards Arts Scholarships

May 29, 2012 - PRLog -- BIG ARTS Phillips Gallery was the scene of a moving ceremony, Tuesday, May 22, as eight students received scholarship awards. These scholarships are awarded, following a rigorous interview and selection procedure, to high school seniors and college students majoring in visual arts, music, dance, theater, creative writing or film.
BIG ARTS Executive Director Lee Ellen Harder said, “Every year we are excited to see the high level of talented students who apply. We are fortunate to be able to invest in the talent in our local community; these students come back to our area and enrich the culture in Southwest Florida.”
Scholarship Committee Chair Dick Riley said, “The members of the Scholarship Committee are certain that the very generous donors who fund the awards would be pleased and amazed at the high quality of the art submitted in the students’ portfolios and would agree that their financial resources were invested prudently in the young artists’ futures.”
BIG ARTS/Patricia Thurber Scholarship Trust Scholarship was awarded to Paul Gavin, Kacie Phillips, and Sasha Wortzel. Gavin is attending the University of South Florida, majoring in Music Education and Percussion performance. Phillips is majoring in Music at Belmont University, in Nashville, Tennessee. Wortzel is earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film at Hunter College in New York City.
Jessica Zizzo, who is graduating from Cypress Lake High School Center for the Arts, will attend the University of South Florida, earned the BIG ARTS Dance Scholarship.                
BIG ARTS/Robert Rauschenberg Scholarship was presented to Anna Craig, Alisa Scribner, Dakota Sica, and Krystal Smith. Craig attends Ringling College of Art & Design, in Sarasota, majoring in Illustration. Sica, a senior at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, received the Rauschenberg Scholarship for his studies in fine arts – sculpture. A graduate of Mariner High School, Scrivner will attend Ringling College of Art & Design to study Game Art and Design. Smith also attended Mariner High School and will study Illustration at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. This project is supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, which seeks to further the artist’s philanthropic and educational interests, and to advance understanding of the legacy of Robert Rauschenberg’s life and artwork. For more Foundation information go to http://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/
           For further information about BIG ARTS Scholarship program or BIG ARTS, or to become a member, stop by BIG ARTS, 900 Dunlop Road Sanibel, call (239) 395-0900,
e-mail info@BIGARTS.org, or log on to http://www.bigarts.org/