The agony settles in. The wait is overbearing. Letters are opened and the winners are announced. 

Lacy Mitcham and Ben Bennett, senior fine art majors, minds were finally at ease after receiving the International Phi Kappa Phi Art Fraternity Scholarships.

“I was just thankful, really thankful,” said Bennett. “I was really nervous because I took kind of a risk. I entered just sculpture, I didn’t enter 2D or anything and when I got it I was happy.”

He then proceeded to text Mitcham who was still waiting to find out her result. 

“He texted me like 20 times over the next couple of days,” said Mitcham. “I didn’t get mine until three or four days after because it was at my mom’s house. I was like ‘Mom I don’t even care. I don’t want the letter just open it.” 

Both students are graduating this semester with a concentration in sculpture. These winners are not unfamiliar with the spotlight. 

Mitcham and Bennett are locally well known in the world of art for their different mediums regularly showing their work in the ‘Downtown Gallery Crawl.’

The artists have known each other for a while now and their conversation tends to flow much in the same way their collaboration as artists do. They collaborated on their own show in June at the Downstairs Gallery. 

“We had the room to ourselves for the two man show,” Mitcham said.

Bennett chimes in with perfect timing without speaking over her. 

“Most of that work is what we won the scholarship with,” Bennett said.

Mitcham and Bennett are the only two sculpture majors left this semester. 

Although they were working on individual pieces for the competition entry, the opinion each contributed was vital. 

 “The work was made in the same space and as it was happening around each other, we always had dialogue. We got critical feedback from each other. I think it was our biggest source at the time,” said Bennett. “Then you could see it start to come out in the work and it was like…it made sense.”

For Mitcham, this part of an overall experience foreshadowed itself years ago.