Spencer Museum announces 2026 Brosseau Creativity Award recipients

LAWRENCE — The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas has announced the 2026 recipients of the Jack & Lavon Brosseau Creativity Awards. 

Established by benefactor Lavon Brosseau in 2011, the awards honor innovative and risk-taking creative work in the categories of writing and diverse media from KU undergraduate students in any area of study. All of this year’s recipients are from Kansas.

Spencer Museum Deputy Director Celka Straughn, who leads the Brosseau Awards committee, said the range of applications for this year’s awards was impressive. 

“It is a delight to see the many forms of creativity generated by KU undergraduates and the many ways that class assignments often stimulate new thinking and experimentation,” Straughn said.

In the writing category, Wyatt Vaughn of Olathe was recognized for his poetry project “Rubric Refuted.” Vaughn said he intended to create a tangible product that rubrics from his studies in engineering and creative writing would fail to evaluate by experimenting with form and imagery. 

“‘Rubric Refuted’ is a testament and progress check for my college experience despite the tension between my academic fields,” he said. 

Vaughn is a junior in English and chemical engineering who previously received an honorable mention for his 2025 submission for the Brosseau Awards.

In the diverse media category, Rory Duncan of Overland Park was recognized for her musical composition “Reverie – For Cello Ensemble.” For this project, Duncan said she wanted to push the boundaries of chamber music. 

“I was looking to maximize agency, authenticity and individuality in each performance, so I decided on inventing my own notation system meant to further reinforce the meditative experience for both musicians and listeners,” she said. 

Duncan is a senior in music composition.

There were two honorable mentions in the diverse media category. Freya Girard, a freshman from Lawrence studying environmental science, English and music composition, was recognized for her musical composition “Anxious for the Next Life,” which explores issues of identity. Alice Lubin-Meyer, a senior from Lawrence in design with a concentration in photography, was recognized for her photographic project “To Hold on or to Let Go,” which focuses on her grandparents’ home to address the effects of illness, poverty and loss. Lubin-Meyer previously received an honorable mention for her 2024 submission for the Brosseau Awards.

More information about the awards and excerpts from the recipients’ projects are available online.