2025
On Sunday, March 30, 2025, eight committee members met to select students to receive scholarships. The committee consists of members from AAG, Arizona Clay, Shemer Art Center and AWA. We view all applicants’ information and three images from each art major student. After a quick run through, we review the submissions, then decide if the student is a yes, no or maybe. The “No” column is removed, then we move on to the next step of deciding which students work will fit into a watercolor or clay category. AWA requires the artist to be painters or have the skill to draw. Clay requires students to be skilled in the ceramic area of art. The other students are in a wide variety of art majors and decisions are not made very quickly. Each individual is carefully viewed and their explanations about their artwork are read. After four hours we had our students selected to receive 10 scholarships.
Two were selected to receive our AWA funds:
Alondra Mora will receive $1,000. AWA – Del Decil scholarship
Aevah Rios will receive $1,000. AWA – Gayla Bonnell scholarship
Each student is required to attend and present a PowerPoint of their artwork at the AAG general meeting on April 15, 2025 from 6 pm to 9 pm
Dyanne Locati, AWA Scholarship Chair
| Student Scholarship Show Shemer Art Center – May 21 to July 10, 2025 | Student Scholarship Reception: Shemer Art Center Address: 5005 E. Camelback Rd. Phoenix, AZ 85018 Date: May 22, 2025 Time: 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm |
Alondra Mora
Aevah Rios
Del Decil Scholarship Fund
Stella Waters Decil (Del) was a prolific oil and watercolor artist and longtime member of AWA. A popular workshop instructor and juror in Arizona and New Mexico, she was a teacher of painting and drawing for the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department. She critiqued art students at Maricopa Tech and was a juror of the Youth Division AZ State Fair. She was published in numerous magazines and newspapers, and her paintings hung in several collections in 20 states.
A monetary legacy was bequeathed from her estate to be used for college art students. This program was developed in 2009 under the direction of AWA President, Diane Parnitzke. The program offers up to $3000, to be awarded to the student (s) whose artwork demonstrates artistic merit and achievement in the area of water-media. The winning student (s) receives the scholarship to the school of their choice for tuition/books/art materials.
Joint Venture with AWA and AAG
AWA was fortunate to recently join Arizona Artists Guild Scholarship Committee in the task of finding candidates for the AWA Del Decil Scholarship. AAG is well known among the local colleges and frequently had candidates who submitted water media artworks to their committee. Because of these contacts, and the well-established process, AWA was able to reach a broader group of students to receive our scholarship. Note: the Del Decil Scholarship is given from the fund established by Del Decil in her legacy and does not impact AWA’s operating funds.
Past scholarship recipients:
2018: Michael Loren Diaz
2019: Breanna Kohlmeyer, Kareem Ferreira, Lee Davenport
2020: Ruchi Ukhade, John Bedard
2021: Kelsey Philips and Hannah Schollmacher
2022: Eli Duarte, Emily Kray, Jesus Sanchez
2023: Arianna Barley, Claire Taylor, Mehraveh Vahediyan
2024: Thanh Do, Xianna Montoya, Marilyn Garcia