OPPORTUNITY ALERT | Visual Arts Scholarship for 12th Grade Black Females

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Three years ago, with the death of George Floyd and too many other acts of police brutality, racism and social unrest in our country, the WCADC Board sat down to brainstorm ways in which we might collectively counter these acts of brutality by channeling our collective energies and creative powers as women and as artists. The result was the birth of our scholarship program which we are committed now more than ever to empower young women in pursuit of their dreams and careers in the arts.

The WCA supports activism in the arts to bring about political and social change. Our scholarship embraces this mission, and as such, a committee was created for our local chapter. My sister scholarship committee members, Sandra Davis, Deborah Walmer, Cynthia Farrell Johnson and I created the WCADC Visual Arts Scholarship for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) females in their high school senior year, or college freshman/sophomore year, pursuing art and living in the Greater DC area.  In creating this scholarship, we wanted to address things that would be useful for the applicant, such as offering a mentor who could help with the application process and answer general questions about a life in the arts. We also wanted the selection to be fair by making it a blind call for the selected jurors. We felt that it was critical for the applicant artist to gain a sense of familiarization with documenting her progress and explaining their art. All of the steps within the applicant process derived from things we either experienced or wished we had as young artists.

In 2021, committee members planned two exhibitions featuring WCADC member's work through “See my Color” a show that was art for social justice, and “We who dream know no borders”, which called for visual works describing how we depict our hopes and dream, particularly in these times of social unrest.  Entry fees for these exhibits went to create our scholarship fund with a dollar-for-dollar match from the WCADC Chapter.

This first year of our scholarship planning and exhibitions was met with the many challenges of COVID-19 in a locked-down uncertain world. As a result, and not to our surprise, we did not receive any applicants.  So, we rolled the additional funds into the following year, and agreed that there would be two winners in 2022.  What we found was that this delay made us more diligent and creative for our 2022 applicants!  Once schools were back to their 'new normal' we reached out to guidance counselors, art teachers, community churches and colleges. We placed flyers on school bulletin boards, in our churches and around our communities. And, taking advantage of social media platforms, we created a video for the WCADC website, and posted frequently on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

All of these efforts paid off, resulting in a number of applicants and ultimately two of our first WCADC scholarship winners: Skye Jones (Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York) and Layla Missihou (Maryland Institute College of Art). Additionally, we awarded three student WCADC memberships.

Congratulations to our 2022 winners, and thank you to everyone who applied!

Questions may be directed to wcadc@wcadc.org.