UMSL students Veronica ‘Mayowa’ Adewole and Adel Abudayeh participate in 2026 Gyo Obata Fellowship

UMSL students Veronica 'Mayowa' Adewole and Adel Abudayeh participate in 2026 Gyo Obata Fellowship

by Burk Krohe | Jul 27, 2026

The Gateway Foundation's paid summer program connects college students to area cultural institutions, nurturing the next generation of arts administrators.

Veronica "Mayowa" Adewole knows firsthand the difference arts organizations can make in the lives of community members. Several programs in particular shaped Adewole growing up in Chicago.

Adewole's communication and media skills were sharpened through free classes at the Howard Area Clubhouse and internships with the Kickback Chi and the Hartman Publishing Group. One year, Adewole even got paid to learn screen printing through the city's One Summer Chicago program. These initiatives provided space for young people, like Adewole, to be creative and express themselves.

"Being able to learn the skills to create programming like that for future generations and the youth is really important to me," Adewole said.

Adewole, a senior communication major at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is doing just that through the 2026 Gyo Obata Fellowship. Over the past two months, Adewole has worked with the Gateway Foundation as a temporary public art manager, creating the governance structure for an art advisory committee that is being developed for a cultural development nonprofit in north St. Louis.

Earlier this summer, the Gateway Foundation named Adewole and Adel Abudayeh, a senior studio art major at UMSL, to the largest Gyo Obata Fellowship cohort in the program's history. This summer, the pair joined nine other local university students participating in the 10-week, paid summer program. It's designed to connect a diverse group of students with area cultural institutions and nurture the next generation of arts administrators.

Honoring a legacy

This year marks the fifth round of the fellowship, which has now engaged more than 50 fellows and 26 host organizations. The competitive application process, which closed in February, received a record number of applications from both prospective fellows and host organizations.

"We're inspired by the incredible quality of candidates from local universities and the breadth of St. Louis cultural institutions that apply to participate year after year, all of whom embody the spirit of Gyo Obata," said Heather Sweeney, executive director of the Gateway Foundation. "The arts are a $868 million industry in St. Louis, and these fellows are the future. Investing in their development is one of the best steps we can take to maintain and grow one of the richest arts communities in the country."

The cultural institutions hosting the latest cohort include Cinema St. Louis, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Counterpublic, the Gateway Foundation, Laumeier Sculpture Park, the Luminary, the Missouri Historical Society, Pack Dance, the Saint Louis Art Fair, STAGES St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. The fellows have also worked with individual mentors from organizations including the orchestra, CIC St. Louis, FOCUS St. Louis, the Kemper Art Museum, the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the Latinx Arts Network, Nine PBS, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Whitaker Foundation.

These organizations and mentors work to carry on the legacy of the late Obata, an acclaimed St. Louis architect and longtime Gateway Foundation board member. A Japanese American and graduate of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, he began his career following the internment of his family during World War II and persevered despite those challenges as a visionary artist, architect and mentor.

The Gateway Foundation created the fellowship in honor of Obata's contributions and to provide a supportive environment for burgeoning artists and arts administrators to learn and grow.

Both Adewole and Abudayeh took unique paths to the fellowship.

Carrying the weight

Abudayeh came to UMSL and began studying art after serving in the United States Marine Corps. He is a multidisciplinary artist, working in painting, printmaking and sculpture, whose work is informed by his combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I don't have a primary medium," he said, commenting on his involvement with the Combat Paper program. "It's whatever can hold the weight of what I'm doing."

It turns out something as delicate as paper was up to the task. Combat Paper is a free community arts program facilitated by veteran and artist Drew Francis Cameron. The initiative teaches people hand papermaking, transforming military uniforms into paper and then meaningful pieces of art. Abudayeh got involved with the program last winter and connected with the process.

"I started noticing that it was not destruction but transformation," he said. "Just like boot camp, you go in and you just get pulped out. You get smashed down. But what's left of you is still you, but it's the essence of you."

Coincidentally, around the same time, he needed to complete a project for his BFA that featured time and place. His project centered on a group photo taken on Nov. 22, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, on the floor of a flour factory. It depicts the remaining Marines from his platoon on the last day of fighting.

Abudayeh transposed the photo onto his handmade canvas and exposed it to the sun and water to echo his exposure to the elements overseas. He also wanted to tell the story of his comrades and express hope for the future.

"Back then you were trying to avoid those things," he said. "You were trying to avoid those conversations, trying to avoid those stories. But how you know you're healing is when you can see it face-to-face, see it in the eyes, know what happened and still smile about it."

The piece was displayed as part of a special exhibit at the St. Peters Cultural Arts Centre last year, and in May, Abudayeh gave an artist talk at the St. Peters' America at 250: Past, Present & Possibility event. His work has also been exhibited nationally, including at the Pentagon's Wounded Warrior Healing Arts Exhibit.

Expressing creativity

Adewole began college at the University of Illinois Chicago and later transferred to an online program at Arizona State University. Initially unsure about what direction to take, Adewole tried psychology, engineering and design. But nothing felt quite right.

During a break from school, Adewole became a certified nail technician and started a nail art business. In 2025, Adewole moved to St. Louis for a change of scenery and began contemplating going back to school.

"All of my experience and everything that I did pointed back to communication," Adewole said. "Communication is in everything, everywhere. Whether it's engineering, whether it's the arts, whether it's psychology and mental health, communication is a key factor. So, I decided that it made sense to do communication."

Adewole expresses creativity not only through nail art but also painting and interior design and draws inspiration from the beauty and cosmetology world.

"I have a salon chair as a prop in my apartment," Adewole said. "I grew up in a salon. My mom was a hairdresser, so I just grew up around that creative, expressive environment. I would also say I find a lot of inspiration from my culture and the Black community."

At UMSL, Adewole has been determined to make the most of the college experience. That's included taking advantage of the chance to meet local employers and explore potential career and internship opportunities at UMSL's semiannual career fairs. The Gyo Obata Fellowship was especially intriguing.

It was a bit nerve-wracking applying to such a competitive program, but Adewole credits previous experience with arts administration programs in Chicago and a highly supportive recommendation letter from Teaching Professor Sandra Trapani for standing out amongst the field of applicants.

Finding space

Adewole was placed with the Gateway Foundation for the summer, and Andréa Purnell, manager of community collaboration for the Saint Louis Art Museum, has served as Adewole's mentor. Meanwhile, Abudayeh worked with the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

The Gateway Foundation is working to support public art in The Ville, a historic Black neighborhood in north St. Louis, through a collaboration with 4theVille. The community-based cultural organization is dedicated to championing the legacy of The Ville via art, cultural tourism, preservation and storytelling. Adewole has advanced that mission as a temporary public art manager with the organization, helping build an art advisory committee from the ground up by creating a committee charter and annual work plan templates and documents.

"The project resonates with me in a personal way because I've seen the same thing that's going on in the Ville happen on the south side of Chicago and the west side," Adewole said.

Adewole's primary goals during the fellowship have been networking and learning more about how others have cultivated successful careers in the arts administration industry.

"I want to know what I should be studying and what I should be looking at in terms of stepping into being a post-graduate," Adewole said. "What realm do I want to go into after I graduate undergrad? Do I want to get a master's? I think the best way to learn is to talk to the mentors and talk to other people that I meet throughout this process and learn about their journey and how they got where they got."

The experience has illustrated what's possible through art and that there's space for Adewole to bring authenticity and creativity into a field where it's valued.

"I think that opportunities like this fellowship and other youth programs I was a part of growing up helped me realize that there was space for me; there was a career that I can build out of the arts and creativity," Adewole said. "I think for a long time I did not believe that that was true. But with the fellowship, learning about people who are doing work in arts administration, learning about people who have made strides in the art field, made me feel like there was space for me, there was space for me to be creative and also earn a living. The arts do matter, and creativity does help people. It's vital to our health as humans to be creative and to be involved in the arts."

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