Art Without Boundaries: Cultural Council for Palm Beach County Announces 2026 Artist Innovation Fellowship Recipients
Palm Beach County, FL — March 15, 2026 — The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County proudly announced the recipients of its 2026 Artist Innovation Fellowships during its signature annual celebration, An A-Muse-ing Evening, marking a significant investment in the region’s creative future.
Now in its largest iteration since the program’s launch in 2020, the initiative will award $10,000 to each of 10 selected artists, bringing the program’s total funding to $257,500 distributed among 31 artists across diverse disciplines. The fellowship is designed to support artistic exploration without restriction, encouraging innovation, experimentation, and the development of new creative directions.
This year’s fellowship recipients are:
Jill Hotchkiss, Sonya Sanchez Arias, Quimetta Perle, Virginia Blische, George Bayer, Ashley Osori, Michelle Drummond, Quinn Miller, Elizabeth Price, and Elizabeth Straight.
Unlike traditional grants tied to specific deliverables, the Artist Innovation Fellowship provides artists with the rare opportunity to pursue ideas freely, without predefined outcomes. Fellows will also participate in Cultural Council programming throughout the year and may serve as mentors to emerging artists, further strengthening the region’s creative ecosystem.
“The Artist Innovation Fellowship gives artists something truly rare: the freedom to imagine without limits,” said Dave Lawrence, President & CEO of the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County. “When we invest in artists as individuals, our entire community grows stronger. By empowering our Fellows to act as cultural tourism ambassadors for The Palm Beaches, we extend that impact globally.”
The announcement was part of An A-Muse-ing Evening, a vibrant celebration of arts and culture in Palm Beach County that also honored outstanding contributions to the cultural landscape. This year’s awardees included:
- Outstanding Corporate Support: The Boca Raton
- Outstanding Cultural Ambassador: Florida Weekly
- Cultural Impact Award: The Peach
- Alexander W. Dreyfoos Lifetime Achievement Award: Donald M. Ephraim
The fellows were selected by a regional panel of arts professionals based on artistic excellence, dedication to their practice, and the transformative potential of their proposed explorations.
The evening—and the continued success of the fellowship program—was made possible through the support of sponsors, participating cultural organizations, Palm Beach County-based creatives, and the Cultural Council’s dedicated staff.
As Palm Beach County continues to position itself as a dynamic hub for arts and culture, initiatives like the Artist Innovation Fellowship underscore the importance of investing in creative talent—not only as a cultural asset, but as a driver of community identity and global engagement.
The 2026 Artist Innovation Fellows and proposals are:
Sonya Sanchez Arias, Visual Art
Blend collaged portraits and print on non-nontraditional surfaces including plastics, metals, glass, and fabrics. Combine digital printing and hard embroidery to reintroduce ancestral handwork into contemporary image-making.
George Bayer, Visual Art
Attend an apprenticeship at Benrido in Kyoto (founded in 1887 the world’s only remaining studio producing full-color photographic collotypes) to learn this endangered technique and create two large-format collotype works, along with a suite of 10 limited-edition boxed sets of gelatin prints.
Virginia Blische, Visual Art
Create an animated series based on multiple felted characters including Rosewell, a frog who loves all things space related.
Michelle Drummond, Visual Art
Study how rural and underrepresented communities navigate environmental and infrastructure challenges (i.e., inaccessibility of clean water). Examine the threads of interconnectedness among these communities and translate their stories into sculptural forms.
Jill Hotchkiss, Visual Art
Collaborate with Flavor Paper Silkscreen Studio to translate dendritic imagery into large wall coverings that serve as immersive environments for scrolls and reliefs, expanding the work into installation-scale formats.
Quinn Miller, Visual Art
Document stories, landscapes, and symbols that parallel the agricultural found in Palm Beach County, especially on the history of sugarcane production within South Florida. The artwork created will explore identity and belonging in rural communities. Work created will be printed on sugarcane paper showing destruction by the elements (i.e., weather).
Ashley Osorio, Music
Bring Comala, an 18th-century opera by the forgotten composer Harriet W. Stewart, to life. Complete the transcription, record Acts 1 and 2 with professional musicians, and contribute as both scholar and performer.
Quimetta Perle, Visual Art
Using interactive fabric, embedding additional imagery into the work, so it is both still and moving, light emitting as well as light reflective.
Elizabeth Price, Theatre
Attend the National Michael Chekhov Society acting training workshop in June 2026. Under the mentorship of Kristen Haaggi to bring to life the story of recovery from an accident.
Elizabeth Straight, Literature
Write and curate a matrilineal poetry collection grounded in creative vulnerability and ancestral memory.
Photo Link: AIF Recipients at the Cultural Council’s 2026 Muse Awards
(L to R): Quimetta Perle, Quinn Miller, Jill Hotchkiss, Michelle Drummond, Virginia Blische, George Bayer, Sonya Sanchez Arias, Ashley Osorio, Elizabeth Straight, Elizabeth Price
*Photo Credit: Premier Photo
About the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County
The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County is the official support agency for arts and culture in The Palm Beaches, Florida’s Cultural Capital®. Headquartered in the historic Robert M. Montgomery, Jr. building in Downtown Lake Worth Beach, the Council presents exciting year-round exhibitions and performances featuring artists who live or work in Palm Beach County. The Council features spectacular work by Palm Beach County-based professional artisans in its Roe Green Uniquely Palm Beach Store and offers complimentary resources for visitors in its Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Visitor Information Center. The Council is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 12 to 5 p.m. For more information and a comprehensive calendar of cultural events in The Palm Beaches, visit palmbeachculture.com.
