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Associate Professor of Visual Art Claire Pope, M.A., MFA, has built a body of work exploring wonder, spirituality and environmental connection through art — work that has earned national recognition and now a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to Ireland for fall 2026.

“I just felt stunned happiness when I received the news,” Pope recalled. “There was some jumping and excitement definitely.”

Hosted by the Burren College of Art, in Ballyvaughan, County Clare, Ireland, Pope’s Fulbright research will explore how the emotion of wonder experienced through art and nature can inspire ecological conservation. During the fall 2026 semester, she will conduct research and create a new body of artwork that will later be exhibited in both Ireland and the United States.

“For me, wonder is the sense of awe that can also be related to the sense of sublime. So often we can feel awe and terror at the same time — this beauty, this absolute overwhelming beauty, and also this knowledge of this great expanse of things we don’t understand,” Pope explained.

Her proposed Fulbright research hopes to translate that sense of awe into action. “How can I feel this sense of wonder, this sense of awe in a landscape, and then translate that into art?” Pope said. “And can that impact others? Can it inspire them to create change because they feel that sense of wonder? That’s my point of exploration.”

This project will continue a body of work Pope has developed throughout her career, exploring spirituality, environmental connection and the natural world. Her artwork has appeared in exhibitions across the United States — including the Mint Museum’s 2024 Coined in the South exhibition — and her connection to Ireland dates back to an earlier artist residency at the Burren. Returning to Ireland through the Fulbright feels like a natural step forward in her artistic evolution.

“As a UNESCO Global Heritage Site, the Burren region is internationally recognized for its sense of grandness and wonder,” Pope said. “Among other features, the Burren has beautiful stone formations that are geologically like nowhere else in the world. There’s also a deeply spiritual aspect of the region that inspires contemplation and creativity. Authors have been writing about the wonder and sacred space there for hundreds of years. That combination of spirituality and environmental interest brought me to the region and has inspired me to return.”

Alongside artists and writers, scientists and environmental researchers are drawn to the Burren for what its unusual geology may reveal about climate change and environmental shifts over time. For Pope, that convergence of disciplines and perspectives makes the region an ideal setting for the kind of international and cross-disciplinary exchange central to the Fulbright program’s mission.

“The beauty of the Burren College of Art is that residents and students are coming from all over the world,” she said. “There’ll be people from all different disciplines within the academics and professional fields.”

Pope’s Fulbright award follows a growing number of nationally competitive scholarship and fellowship successes among ������Ƶ students and faculty in recent years, including Goldwater and Gilman scholarships supported through the Fritz Honors College.

Pope credited Dean of the Fritz Honors College Jeff Vahlbusch, Ph.D., with encouraging her throughout the Fulbright application process. She hopes the experience will inspire students to pursue ambitious opportunities of their own.

“I told my students very openly that this was competitive,” Pope said. “I wasn’t sure I was going to get it, but you have to put yourself out there. My hope is that this motivates and inspires them, that they think, ‘I can do this too.’”

Ultimately, Pope hopes the work created during the residency opens new conversations about art, emotion and environmental responsibility.

“I’m a firm believer that through affect, we can create effect,” Pope said. “By stirring emotions, by making people feel through art, I believe that that can change people. It can inspire them. And so that’s my hope.”