Award for Excellence | Melbourne Fine Art Festival 2026 | David Neal McPhee

At the end of April, I packed up the booth, loaded the car, and drove home from the 41st Annual Melbourne Fine Art Festival with something I didn't expect — an Award for Excellence.

The Melbourne Fine Art Festival draws approximately 250 artists competing across all two-dimensional media. Painters, photographers, printmakers, illustrators. The award is juried. You don't lobby for it or sign up for it. Someone looks at the work and decides it matters.

I've been doing festivals along Florida's Space Coast for a few years now. I know what it feels like to set up the booth, hang the paintings, and stand there while people walk past. I know what it feels like when someone stops — really stops — and leans in close to see if it's a photograph or a painting. That moment never gets old.

Winning this award means something specific to me. I'm building toward a full-time art career. I'm 51. The path is long and the days are full — a day job, a studio, a schedule that starts at 4:30 in the morning. Every piece of external validation is a marker on the trail. It says: keep going. The work is real.

Thank you to the festival, to the jurors, and to everyone who stopped at the booth this year. The conversations are half the reason I show up.

The work continues.

— David