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Six outstanding members of the Cleveland Institute of Art’s 2013 graduating class have won the President’s Traveling Scholarships, special cash awards from the college that will help them further their artistic growth by visiting particular areas of the nation and the world.

Joshua Maxwell, a biomedical art major, is the winner of the top prize, the First Agnes Gund Traveling Award of $4,500. Painting major Amanda Pierce and ceramics major Emily Giuliano won the Second and Third Agnes Gund Traveling Awards, respectively. Each will also receive $4,500.

Ceramics major Anna Wallace won the $4,000 Helen Greene Perry Traveling Scholarship; fiber + materials major Mathew Grady won the $3,500 Mary C. Page Memorial Scholarship; and drawing major Lindsay Matthews was awarded the $3,000 Nancy Dunn Memorial Scholarship.

“CIA’s Traveling Scholarships were endowed many years ago by generous benefactors,” explained CIA President Grafton J. Nunes. “This is a wonderful tradition that, every year, allows a very select group of CIA graduates to pursue their interests beyond Ohio.”

The winners’ travel-related art projects hint at the diversity of their talents and of CIA’s curriculum.

Maxwell will explore the Great Lakes region, visiting preserved and disturbed habitats, creating artwork reflecting his observations, and sharing his elaborate natural history presentation titled “The Great Lakes Collective” at universities and research institutes. His stops will include Saginaw, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Aldo Leopold Nature Preserve on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; the Manitoulin Islands near Sudbury, Ontario; and the city of Ottawa. Once he returns to Cleveland, he hopes to showcase his findings at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where he has worked extensively creating illustrations for scientists including Gavin Svenson, Ph.D., curator and head of invertebrate zoology.

“CIA is undoubtedly an engine for creative growth and experimentation for students that are driven to push themselves,” said Maxwell. The scholarship is “not only going to help me further my current project, but will also allow me to branch out into the professional fields that I want to be a part of in my career.”

Pierce said her scholarship represents the gift of direct experience. “The award will help me to continue my research and see a lot of work that I have only ever seen online or in books,” she said about her plan to visit Europe. She looks forward to observing first-hand the roots and current trends of European art and design, which were the focus of her CIA studies. “I am most excited to see the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, and experience that art, design, and architecture in person.”

Giuliano will travel the U.S. visiting zine (independent magazine) festivals and independent publishers in Oregon, California, Illinois and New York. She intends to create a zine of her own about her travels. Wallace will spend three weeks in Paris studying the city itself as a “great work of art,” especially as influenced by the Baroque, Rococo and Art Nouveau movements.

Grady plans a trip to Budapest to connect with his ethnic heritage, research history in this “lush, old-world city,” and make art in this very different context. Matthews will travel to London and France to visit the great museums in these cities with a particular interest in textiles, fashion and decorative arts.

Scholarships awarded upon graduation are rare at American colleges but at CIA the tradition dates back decades. The President’s Traveling Scholarship winners are selected by a faculty committee through a competitive process based on applicants’ capstone bachelor of fine arts (BFA) thesis exhibitions, and on the quality of their detailed travel-project proposals.

Have scholarships will travel! Above, CIA’s President’s Traveling Scholarship winners celebrate after receiving their awards. They are, left to right, Amanda Pierce, Joshua Maxwell, Anna Wallace, Matthew Grady, Emily Giuliano and Lindsey Matthews