Marcy Brown Marsden, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at MSU Texas, announced Catherine Prose as the recipient of the 2025-26 Jane Spears Carnes Faculty Fellowship in Creative Endeavors. 

Through the generous gift of Jane Spears Carnes, a one-semester support grant is available to reward and refresh faculty who work in creative fields, enhancing their research, artistic endeavors, performance, or teaching. 

Prose, Professor of Art in the Juanita and Ralph Harvey School of Visual Art, Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts, will focus on further advancing her creative research, Impressions of Pressed Wildflowers, by utilizing a technique of laser wood engraving and traditional Japanese printing technique, Mokuhanga. She is drawing together roughly 200 of her grandmother’s, Vera Prose (b. 1904-1998), pressed flowers dating back 70 years; archiving and identifying the flora, scanning, digitizing, and utilizing both the traditional Western-style of printing with oil ink and printing press and screen-monotype technique to create one-of-a-kind floral prints. Upon installation, the screen-monotype will act as a background for her laser engravings. 

Prose’s work has been acknowledged with upcoming exhibition prospects, publications, and master class opportunities with Georgetown Art Center, Mid-American Print Council Journal, Texas Tech’s Studio Gallery, Southern Graphics Council International 2026 Exchange Portfolio, and the Southern Graphics Council International 2027 Conference. 

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Jane Spears Carnes Faculty Fellowship in Creative Endeavors, made possible by a gift from Carnes, is a support grant to reward and refresh faculty in creative fields so they might take a semester off from teaching to enhance their research, artistic endeavors, and teaching. It will support the faculty activities and their replacement in the classroom for one semester. 

Carnes has been an art teacher herself. She previously owned an art gallery and gave lessons to children. After the gallery closed, she taught art to adults in her home and now writes. “I realized how critical it was to have time and solitude to work,” Carnes said. “It’s crucial to have time to block out the world so you can focus.” 

A longtime supporter of all the arts in Wichita Falls, Carnes has served on boards for the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra and the Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU Texas. She also served on the MSU Texas Board of Regents from 2008-2014. 

Professor of Art Suguru Hiraide was the first recipient of the fellowship. Ruth Morrow, professor and the Bolin Distinguished Chair of Piano, Associate Professor of Art Morgan Page, and Professor of English Kirsten Lodge have also received the fellowship.