When applying for an international award that has 190 winners but more than 2,600 applicants, it’s best to assume you won’t get one.

David Taylor, associate professor of art at New Mexico State University, had applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship and was suffering a minor case of self-doubt after receiving a rejection letter for a less competitive opportunity earlier in the week. When he received an envelope from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Taylor assumed this was yet another rejection letter.

“With things like the Guggenheim, you put your best effort into the application, submit the materials and forget about it,” Taylor says.

As Taylor pulled the envelope from the stack of mail, his hopes were raised as he recalled a story about a former colleague and Guggenheim recipient who thought to himself “this is sort of thick for a rejection letter.”

After opening his letter, Taylor found he had joined a list of 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship Award winners graced by two Pulitzer Prize winners.

According to the Guggenheim Foundation, “fellows are appointed on the basis of stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment.” The 2008 list of winners represents 75 disciplines and 81 academic institutions.

The average amount of a fellowship grant in 2007 was approximately $40,211 with the purpose of providing fellows with time to work with as much creative freedom as possible. They may spend their grant funds in any manner necessary to pursue their work.

Taylor says many factors play into winning the award and it ultimately comes down to the right work at the right time.

“It’s possible that I could have sent in the same proposal last year and not received the fellowship,” Taylor says.

In his proposed work plan to the foundation, Taylor outlined projects that are a continuation of work he already has under way.

For two years, Taylor has photographed the U.S. and Mexico border to portray, as he says, “the dissonance between our idealized notion of the West and the present-day issues playing out along the U.S./Mexico border.”

Taylor says he has been fascinated by the word “frontier” and the two distinct usages in the English and Spanish languages.

“The common usage is different,” Taylor says. “In Spanish it means ‘the line.’ In English the ‘frontier’ is an idealized locale just over the horizon – the place we test ourselves.”

Growing up in New England, Taylor had never been exposed to the West.

“This is an incredibly interesting and engaging place to end up,” Taylor says.

Last year Taylor was awarded and completed a commission for an artwork that’s permanently installed in a newly constructed U.S. Border Patrol station in Van Horn, Texas. This work became one of the starting points for his Guggenheim proposal.