MADISON – Liz Vaughn, art instructor at James Clemens High School, has received a grant from the National Art Education Foundation to study for two weeks in Florence, Italy.

“I was the recipient of the Ruth Halvorsen Grant in the amount of $3,000 for my grant proposal, ‘Art in the Cradle of the Renaissance,'” Vaughn said. “I am going to attend a two-week long intensive drawing and painting course at the Accademia del Giglio in Florence for the last two weeks of July.”

Vaughn will stay with a local family while in Florence.

The Accademia allows students to set their own goals for classes, so Vaughn will pursue personalized instruction. Four days a week, she will attend five hour-long classes at the Accademia. The other three days, she can visit the Tuscan countryside to paint images of the landscape and visit city sites like the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Ponte Vecchio, Uffizi Gallery and Galleria dell’Accademia.

“I also plan on signing up for a pasta-making course!” Vaughn said.

Vaughn is a National Board Certified Teacher or NBCT.

Foundation grants are very competitive. From 44 proposals submitted this year, foundation officials awarded 14 grants.

The foundation is a sister organization of the National Art Education Association or NAEA and supports visual art educators and promotes teaching of art through professional development, research and program sponsorship.

Since its inception in 1985, the foundation has supported 330 projects. The organization’s funding supports various professional activities, including research in art education, scholarships for professional development and promotion of art education as an integral part of curriculum.

Other goals are improving art instruction in public and private K-12 schools; promoting teaching of art with activities related to the instructional process, curriculum, student learning and assessment; classroom behavior; and purchase of art equipment and/or instructional resources.

Application deadline is Oct. 1, 2019 if educators want to file a grant proposal for the next funding cycle that will begin July 1, 2020. For updated guidelines, visit arteducators.org/naef in mid-August.