photo by: Contributed

2025 Phoenix Awards by local artist C. Bryan Young.

If you want to nominate a local artist for the City of Lawrence’s 2026 Phoenix Awards — or if you want to create the physical awards themselves — applications and nominations are now open.

Five Phoenix Awards are given out by the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission each year to recognize outstanding contributions to the city’s arts and culture scene. Emerging and established artists in “visual, literary, musical, theatrical, and media arts” are eligible to be nominated, as are educators, administrators, advocates and organizations that support the arts. Anyone can submit a nomination; forms are available at lawrenceks.gov/prc/phoenix-awards. The deadline to submit nominations is 10 p.m. Oct. 5.

On the same webpage, you can find a call for artists to create the physical awards given out to the honorees. Artists are asked to provide a letter about their interest in the project and information about their qualifications, including references and samples of past work. The selected artist or team of artists will have a project budget of $5,000 to create six awards, one for each honoree and one for display in the Carnegie Building. Applications are open to all professional artists who live in Douglas County, and the deadline to apply is 11 p.m. Aug. 4.

Last year’s Phoenix Award sculptures were created by C. Bryan Young.