Jim Boone Endowed Art Scholarship (F07604)

James Owen Boone, Jr. (1943 – 2011) was raised in Jacksonville, as one of 6 siblings. Jim attended Tennessee Wesleyan College where he completed his four year degree in three years while he worked as a janitor, a bus driver, and assembly line worker. Jim became a bishop in the Church of God of Prophecy and had one of on the fastest growing congregations in the denomination before he changed careers and earned his Education Doctorate degree in Statistics and Research Design from Florida State University in 1977.

Jim was a research scientist at the FAA’s Civil Aeromedical Institute in Oklahoma City and developed a mathematical formula that corrected for restriction in range of research data. He received international attention for this formula and was invited to a NATO conference in Copenhagen. At CAMI Jim represented the FAA on a work group of the President’s Commission on The Accident at Three Mile Island and was appointed the spokesman for the FAA Academy following the air traffic controller strike of 1981. He was also elected an Associate Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association.
Jim next served in Washington, D.C. as a Special Assistant to the FAA Administrator to address issues that led to the air traffic controller strike. Jim retired from the FAA after serving in one of his favorite positions, deputy director of the Center for Management Development in Palm Coast, FL.
After his retirement Jim enjoyed painting, and particularly enjoyed developing his own paints using the same methods used centuries ago. Jim took delight in building his own home in Oklahoma City and renovating two early 20th century homes in Atlanta. Jim was dedicated to his family, friends and daughter.
Shortly after his passing in 2011, Jim Boone’s family established the Jim Boone Endowed Scholarship to pay tribute to his love of art.

Jim Boone Scholarship Recipients 2016

Adrian Errico, 2016 Recipient, MFA Class of 2017

I utilize electronic media to create moments that defy time and space, moments which make the everyday world foreign and exciting again. Video is comprised of pixels that I am able to manipulate as matter no different from a painter or sculptor with their respective materials, and with these pixels I disrupt perceptions of linear time. 

Adrian Errico is a Digital Video artist that works with video, audio, text and photography and draws influence from Miranda July, Karen Finley, Tabaimo, Jan Svankmajer, and Michel Gondry.

Brittany Watkins, 2016 Recipient, MFA Class of 2016

Brittany M. Watkins is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Carrollton, Georgia. After being awarded an Art Study Abroad Scholarship, she traveled to Bayeux, Caen, St.Malo, and Paris, France, where she studied advanced watercolors. It was during this time abroad that she first experienced strange visions similar to a dream; she witnessed herself from afar. These third-person introspections proved to be artworks in their own right, leading to a shift away from sculptural ceramics and into video and performance.

Lena Weissbrot, 2016 Recipient, BFA Class of 2016

I have always been interested in art as a platform for progress and activism and am attracted to the hip-hop genre for being inextricably linked to politics and creativity.

In addition to her Jim Boone Scholarship, Weissbrot was selected as one of ten Fulbright-mtvU Award Recipients. She is currently working South Africa studing hip-hop music as a political force, along with the genre’s intersection with feminism. She plans to curate the creations of local South African artists and activists who identify as feminists.