An extremely exciting new opportunity has presented it's self in the way of the Donald and Kim Jurney Traveling Fellowship. I have been a long time follower and fan of the artist Donald Jurney, (a revered landscape painter based out of Massachusetts) and await his posts on instagram like a daily sermon. Last year I noticed that he and his wife Kim had started a grant to assist American painters working in traditional media to travel abroad to their country of choice in Europe. I thought the concept was genius and had intended to apply but, time got away from me and I forgot about the deadline. Flash forward a year, I remembered the deadline and applied. I quickly dismissed the idea that I would actually wind up winning so I shelved the idea and got back to painting and living.

Three months later on February 1st the announcement was to be made on who the recipient would be. Of course I had forgotten this and was in Mexico with my father and had perhaps the greatest morning ever. I am happy to say that I am the 2018 fellowship recipient and that I will be traveling to Italy (specifically the Tuscany region) at the end of May for an undetermined amount of time to paint and feed on all the inspiration I can.

I will be posting as much as I can in the following months leading up to the journey and while there. I want to share the experience like the recipient before me Martin Dimitrov (funny enough he is living here in AZ not too far away from me) in hopes that I can inspire others out there to get out there and paint or apply for the fellowship.