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The Dianne Komminsk Scholarship originated with a generous donation from Ohio Art Patron and philanthropist Dianne Komminsk. Mid-South Sculpture Alliance is honored to continue her legacy of giving and promoting the arts by continuing to provide this scholarship to students across the US. The scholarship is open to all students currently enrolled in any higher education art program (BA, BFA, and MFA candidates are all welcome to apply). Students who apply need to provide a sponsor (someone who is a current member of MSA). Applicants may nominate themselves if their own membership is current. The goal of the MSA scholarship is to provide monetary support, networking, and exhibition opportunities to students in order to promote a supportive environment for sculptors as they advance through their academic studies. 

Scholarship recipients will receive: 

• $300
• Mentorship sessions with an MSA Arts professional 
• Exhibition of work at Confab 2026
• Presentation of work at the MSA Confab 2026

Applications are due on March 15th  at 11:59 PM CST and will be juried by Ashley Hope Carlisle and Coulter Fussell.

Application and Exhibit Timeline

Call opens: 2-15-26

Deadline for submission: 3-15-26

Artists to be notified: 5-1-26

Information regarding the exhibition at MSA Confab 2026 will be sent to recipients after notification of award.

Artist Eligibility

• This opportunity is open to nominated student artists actively enrolled in BA, BFA and MFA programs who have not previously received this award.

• Applicants must be nominated by a current MSA member or may self-nominate if they are a member themselves.

• Each applicant may enter 5-10 artworks; all entries must have been conceived and created by the artist submitting the artwork.

• Application formembership can be made when submitting for this exhibition.

• Application is free to applicants.

2026 Jurors

Ashley Hope Carlisle (American, 1975) is an artist and educator whose practice spans sculpture, drawing, installation, and interdisciplinary fields including set design, costume design, and industrial design. Her work explores the intersection of art and science, examining how plants and animals disperse and adapt through natural processes, environmental change, and instinctual behavior. Using material as a visual language, Carlisle investigates the tension between vulnerability and protection, often revealing the illusion or false comfort of perceived safety.

Through a combination of formal rigor, tactile sensitivity, and rich materiality, Carlisle creates works that function as visual guides for navigating discomfort while offering moments of reassurance in confronting the inevitable. Her work has been exhibited internationally across Africa and Europe, as well as throughout the United States, including at the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton, New Jersey.

Carlisle is a recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship Artist Grant and has collaborated on projects supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wyoming Humanities Council, and the University of Wyoming’s Center for Global Studies. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Georgia and is currently a Professor of Art specializing in Sculpture at the University of Wyoming.

Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Ashley Hope Carlisle lives and works in Laramie, Wyoming, with her husband, David Jones, and their son, Dylan Elijah.

Coulter Fussell (b. 1977, Columbus, Georgia) is a visual artist who lives and works in Water Valley, Mississippi. Her practice spans quilting, upholstery and mixed media works that intersect photography and sculpture. She produces dream-like objects that blur perspectives of love, violence and place in a rural world. Coulter integrates textile materials donated by friends and strangers with crowd-sourced video and photography, creating forms that compare global conflicts, both historical and current, with interpersonal psychodramas.

Optimism, humor and the philosophy that Craft is the beginning and end of all Art guides her work. Coulter learned to quilt from her mother and make dolls from her grandmother. The rest she learned from YouTube.

Coulter spent two decades as a career diner waitress while raising her children in rural north Mississippi. During that time, she won numerous awards including the 2017 ArtsSouth Southern Prize Finalist, a 2019 United States Artist Fellowship, the 2021 Jane-Crater Hiatt Fellowship from the Mississippi Museum of Art and 2024 funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation of Visual Arts Exhibition Support Grant. Her work has been featured in 2024 art-book publication New Women’s Work: Reimagining “Feminist” Craft in Contemporary Art and Art In America. In 2025, she became a Yaddo Fellow, had her first solo show in New York City at MARCH Gallery and was featured at Arrival Art Fair with Wolfgang Gallery. Her work was named “Best of” by ArtNews for her showing at The Armory Show with Sheet Cake Gallery. Her solo show at The Mississippi Museum of Art opens in March 2026. In 2026, Coulter received Creative Capital/State of the Art funding. Having exhibited in numerous institutions and galleries across the South and New York City, Coulter is currently a full-time studio artist.