2025 John Kurtich Scholarship Foundation Winners

Samantha Olschan - Her creative practice investigates how storytelling, motion design, & experimental narrative can be of service to under-represented and/or under-served communities. 

As an educator, she combines collaborative, game-based & project-based learning in the classroom with digital media as a learning aid.

Recent exhibitions and screenings include the P.O.V. Series (PBS), The ShortList (PBS),  The Connecticut Art Directors Club, Tag Gallery Los Angeles, Las Laguna Gallery, Gallery Omnibus, Hollywood North Film Awards, The William Benton Museum of Art, The Peninsula School of Art,  Black Maria Film & Video Festival, New Haven International Film Festival, The Seattle International Film Festival, Boston Cinema Census, Boston Underground Film Festival, FrackFest, Visionfest, Tribeca Cinemas, Bumbershoot, The Gene Siskel Film Center, Marblehead Film Festival, The Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Greece,  and Womenwhodraw.com.

Teaching appointments in animation, design & media include: University of Connecticut, Pratt Institute, Wesleyan University, Quinnipiac University, Columbia College, New York Film Academy & The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Elaine Miller is a Chicago-based artist known for her lush and colorful paintings that record and explore the mysteries of the natural world and our complex relationship with it. Long a devoted nature lover, her work documents the decline of forests and the wildlife it supports, especially in the face of the duel onslaught of climate change and overdevelopment. In her work as a scenic painter for film and TV, Elaine developed her large scale mural painting skills which led to an interest in public art works. She is a recent recipient of a City of Chicago DCASE grant to develop a series of billboards which displayed her paintings of the local forest preserve. Elaine continues to exhibit her paintings nationally and holds an MA from Kent State University and and MFA from Northern Illinois University.