2016 City of Hamilton Arts Awards Recipients Announced

HAMILTON, ON – June 9, 2016 – The City Hamilton is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2016 City of Hamilton Arts Awards, presented Thursday, June 9 at The Scottish Rite Club of Hamilton.

The awards ceremony and reception celebrated Hamilton's thriving arts community, with   site-specific installations, live performances, refreshments and the announcement of the following 18 Award recipients. 

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT - SCOTT BARNIM
Coming from a family of craftsmen, Scott’s dream to become a potter at the age of five came as no surprise to those close to him.

Since 1980, Scott Barnim’s studio has been home not only to his internationally recognized practice as a potter, but also to dozens of young artists in their formative years working as studio apprentices who have gone on to become full-time artists in their own regard throughout the province.  For many, Barnim Pottery is considered a rite of passage.

Over his 40-year career, Scott has been privileged to apprentice and practice alongside some of the finest craftspeople in ceramics including Donn Zver, Bodil Pearson, and English potters Mick Casson and Alan Caiger-Smith.

With a Masters in Fine Arts from Cardiff University, Scott’s work has been featured at the Gardiner Museum “On the Table – 100 years of functional Canadian Pottery” exhibition, at the Burlington Arts Centre - “Taking Stock – Scott Barnim Solo Exhibition”, and countless others. He is a recipient of John Maher Medal for outstanding contribution to craft in Ontario.

Scott has served on the Board of the Hamilton & Region Potters Guild, Ontario Crafts Council, Dundas Valley School of Art, Ontario Potters Association, and is a founding member of the Beyond the Valley Studio Tour which now generates upwards $250,000 a year in sales for local and regional potters.

ARTS INNOVATION - JODY BOSTON
Many are aware of the profound effects that the arts can have on young hearts and minds – but few dedicate their careers to collaborating with those who have experienced poverty, abuse, social isolation, homelessness or mental health issues. Jody Boston’s training has taken her from theatre school at the University of Toronto, to studying social therapeutics at the East Institute of Short–term Psychotherapy in New York. And her practice has included teaching, program development, creative leadership and research in partnership with McMaster University. The Good Shepard, Artforms, Centre 3, The Catholic Children’s Aid Society, Interval House, Hamilton Urban Theatre and Under the Willows where she is currently the Program Director. Under the Willows is an arts, garden and play program where children who experience adverse life circumstances express creativity, imagination and joy.

Jody’s promise to Hamilton is that she will use her skills as a classically trained actor, her curiosity, personal experience and resourcefulness in innovative ways to facilitate the kind of human connections that will transform our community.

ARTS EDUCATION & COMMUNITY ARTS - NEA REID

Nea Reid is the founder and Artistic Director of Hamilton Youth Poets and Louder Than a Bomb Canada. Shifting from a 20-year career in film and television production to the role of facilitator and educator, Nea engages youth in telling their own stories through spoken word, verse, multimedia and poetry slam at Hamilton Youth Poets. This year-round work is then celebrated every spring at their annual festival, Louder Than  A Bomb Canada, contributing an affirmative youth culture on a local and national stage.  Nea selected Eddie Lartey as her emerging artist recipient.

FINE CRAFT - LORRAINE ROY
Learning that Lorraine Roy’s formal education is a Bachelor in Science in Agriculture, with a major in ornamental horticulture comes as no surprise to those who have experienced her brilliant textile works.  Her work is heralded for having a strong narrative component and technical mastery, and has been exhibited extensively in Ontario, Quebec, the United States and throughout Europe.  In 2013 Lorraine was awarded the rare Artistes visuels et des métiers d’art program from the Ontario Arts Council.  Lorraine selected Diana Scholtens as her emerging artist recipient.

WRITING - JOHN TERPSTRA
John Terpstra’s works have been described as ‘essential reading for any citizen, local politician or stakeholder who wishes to understand the underlying cultural and historical roots of this city” making it all too fitting that he would be named the 2015 winner of Hamilton’s Mayor’s Poetry Prize.  While he humbly claims “the writing gets done while I am not looking” his 9 books of poetry, and 4 non-fiction works have won numerous awards locally and beyond.  John is a member of the Executive for the Hamilton Poetry Centre and an active member of the League of Canadian Poets. John Terpstra selected Marc di Saverio as his emerging artist recipient.

MUSIC - DIANA PANTON
Diana Panton is a gifted artist whose talents cover a wide spectrum of the arts which she shares as both a teacher at Westdale High school and a critically acclaimed musician.  Since 2005 Diana has released seven albums which have won numerous awards internationally including the 2013 JUNO award for Best Vocal Jazz Album, multiple Hamilton Music Awards, and the Silver Disc Award in Japan.  Diana strives to make music that inextricably linked to emotion – making it timeless and universal.  Diana Panton selected Troy Witherow as her emerging artist recipient.

VISUAL ARTS - C.WELLS
C.Wells has combined a painting component, ongoing photo-performance and a writing component into an arts practice akin in spirit to that of a contemporary topographer, charting ideas from the colloquial to the universal by exclusively employing the line marker – the painted lines which inhabit the roads, highways and byways globally. This communication device, its material properties as a painted language and its associated schematics, have been used as a creative index by Wells to explore the line marker's visual, narrative and metaphoric connections to our everyday lives. 

For almost 30 years his work has been recognized by peer juries of the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and Alberta Arts Foundation.  Wells will be exhibiting SHUTTER as part of Supercrawl 2016.  C.Wells selected Colin Lyons as his emerging artist recipient.

MEDIA ARTS - KYLE HYTONEN
With the intention of landing upon “revelation of possibly rather than one of assurance”, Kyle Hytonen’s non-linear approach to film making has resonated with audiences here in Hamilton and beyond. Winner of the Audience Choice Awards at the Hamilton Film Festival, Little Nightmares Festival and the King Street Alternative Film Festival, Kyle’s work is growing in recognition. Kyle is an active member of the Factory Media Arts Centre on James North, and is a graduate of the Film Production Program at Confederation College in Thunder Bay.  Kyle selected Derek Lukosius as his emerging artist recipient.

ARTS MANAGEMENT - STEPHANIE VEGH
Stephanie Vegh formally added the role of advocate to her cultural identity in Hamilton when she began writing rare critical dialogue for Akimbo in 2008. Her expertise as a writer and lived experience as a visual artist has made her a dynamic leader for the Hamilton Arts Council since 2011. Stephanie works to channel the transformative potential of the arts to create the best possible conditions for artists to thrive in Hamilton.  Stephanie selected Lesley Loksi Chan as her emerging artist recipient.

THEATRE - RADHA MENON
Spending her formative years as a theatre artist in the United Kingdom, Radha Menon has been actively producing work in Canada since 2001.  As a playwright, her works have won the Critic’s Choice Award at the Hamilton Fringe Festival, the Toronto Fringe Festival New Play Contest, and have been produced locally at the Staircase Theatre, Artword Artbar, Citadel Theatre, and beyond Hamilton at the Factory Theatre and Nightwood Theatre, both in Toronto.  Radha is committed to telling stories that Canadian audiences rarely experience and reflect the cultural diversity and global experience in their aesthetic, process or content.  Radha selected Rose Hopkins as her emerging artist recipient.

EMERGING ARTISTS AND AWARD SPONSORS
Each award winner in a discipline specific category selected an emerging artist for recognition. Each emerging artist received a monetary prize of $1,000 to support the development of their work. Local businesses financially contributed to the 2016 Arts Awards Program to make these emerging artist prizes possible and representatives were on hand to present the awards and connect with deserving nominees from all artistic disciplines. The City of Hamilton gratefully acknowledges these organizations and the reception and in-kind sponsors for their generous contributions:

EMERGING ARTIST AWARD SPONSORS

• Arts Education and Community Arts Award – Marz Homes
• Arts Management Award – Beckett Lowden Read LLP
• Fine Craft Award – The National Bank of Canada
• Media Arts Award – Core Urban Inc.
• Theatre Award – The Incite Foundation for the Arts
• Visual Arts Award – Upper James Toyota 
• Writing Award – Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti  LLP

MEDIA SPONSOR The Hamilton Spectator
PHOTOGRAPHY SPONSOR Banko Media
PRINT SPONSOR The Printing House
RECEPTION SPONSORS View Magazine, dpai Architecture Inc., ArcelorMittal, Spallacci Homes, Royal Connaught

THE CITY OF HAMILTON ARTS AWARDS
The City of Hamilton Arts Awards is one of the oldest municipality-led arts awards programs in Canada. This program celebrates and builds awareness of the incredible contribution that artists make to Hamilton and helps demonstrate the City’s pride in Hamilton’s arts community, inspire and enhance success, foster growth and develop talent.

For more information and high resolution photos of this year’s award recipients, visit www.hamilton.ca/artsawards, email: [email protected], or call (905) 546-2424 ext. 4270.