Arrowhead Arts Awards
Arrowhead Regional Arts Council is pleased to announce the recipients of the 10th annual Arrowhead Arts Awards:
Maddie Simons Advocate Award: Betsy Bowen
George Morrison Artist Award: Jim Brandenburg
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| Brandenburg | Bowen |
Our society rarely recognizes individuals’ extraordinary contributions to the arts and their importance to the quality of our lives. The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council created the Arrowhead Arts Awards in 1997 to annually spotlight the accomplishments of two individuals who have made important contributions to the arts in the Arrowhead Region.
On Friday, May 9, 2008, the ARAC is honored to present the 10th Annual Arrowhead Arts Awards in a short ceremony at 6 p.m. in the Betsy Bowen Studio, 301 1st Avenue West in Grand Marais, MN. The awards ceremony will be part of the Jazz Art Underground Sneak Preview and will feature live music by Jazz Pianist Chris Gillis.
This year's recipient of the Maddie Simons Advocate Award is Betsy Bowen in recognition of her contribution to the arts as an arts advocate, a printmaker, a writer, illustrator, musician, puppeteer, set designer, pageant director, proprietor of Good Harbor Hill Press, founding member of the Good Harbor Hill Players, and active supporter of artists and the arts in Grand Marais and beyond.
Bowen has lived and created her art for over 40 years in an old homestead at the edge of the wilderness near Lake Superior’s north shore. The poet, Muriel Rukeyser, wrote that “Scientists tell us that the world is made up of Atoms, but we know it is made up of Stories.” This concept has shaped Bowen’s view of the world. Her work in printmaking has focused on illustrations for picture books that she has written or that have been written by others. Bowen has used her love of stories and her skills as an illustrator to work in a variety of ethnic communities, the most recent being the immigrant Somali population. Her interest in folktales and pageantry has led her to create puppets and staging for community theater and dance performances. Bowen currently operates a studio, gallery and arts performance space in the Old Playhouse, a building which once housed the local community theater and was the original Norwegian Lutheran Church, built in 1903. Since purchasing the building, she has made the space available to local artists for exhibits, classes, meetings, and performances.
Jay Andersen, the first recipient of the Maddie Simons Advocate Award and past Executive Director of the Grand Marais Art Colony, will introduce and present the 10th Annual Maddie Simons Advocate Award to Betsy Bowen at this year’s ceremony.
The Maddie Simons Advocate Award is named after the first volunteer Chairperson of the ARAC Board, Madeline Simons. Simons was a long time resident of Grand Marais who owned a dance studio and helped start the Grand Marais Playhouse, the Lutsen Art Fair, and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts.
This year’s recipient of the George Morrison Artist Award is renowned photographer Jim Brandenburg of Ely, MN. Brandenburg took his first photograph at age fourteen and then further developed his photographic skills and style while majoring in art at the University of Minnesota. Since college, Brandenburg has traveled as a photographer with National Geographic Magazine for several decades and has work published in numerous national and international publications including The New York Times, Life, Time, Audubon, Smithsonian, Natural History, Geo, Modern Maturity, BBC Wildlife, Outdoor Photographer, National Wildlife and Outside. He is considered one of the premier wildlife photographers in the world. Brandenburg’s career with the National Geographic Society resulted in 23 magazine stories, several television features and many National Geographic books. His photographs have won a multitude of national and international awards. He was twice named “Magazine Photographer of the Year: by the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA) and “Kodak Wildlife Photographer of the Year” by the Natural History Museum-London and BBC Wildlife Magazine. He was a “Hasselblad Master” in 2002, a “Nikon Legend Behind the Lens” in 2001 and is proud to be one of Canon’s “Explorer of Light” photographers. Brandenburg’s work is available through his gallery in Ely and is in collections throughout the world.
Brandenburg has published many bestselling books including: Chased by the Light, Looking for the Summer, Brother Wolf, White Wolf and Minnesota Images of Home. He has published four young adult books: To the Top of the World, Scruffy, An American Safari and Sand and Fog. A National Geographic book, Face to Face with Wolves, featuring the work of Jim and Judy Brandenburg will be released in the Spring of 2008.
Brandenburg was producer, director and cinematographer of a National Geographic movie, White Wolf that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Brandenburg says that as the photographer, “I’m interested in people’s relationship with wolves…as much as it touches a feared aspect in us, the wolf is a symbol of wilderness that we’re trying to reconcile and make an agreement with.” A television documentary featuring Chased by the Light is currently playing throughout the nation on PBS. Brandenburg is currently working on several high-definition movies.
The George Morrison Artist Award is named after internationally recognized visual artist George Morrison who was widely recognized as an important contributor to the second generation of American abstract expressionist artists and is also heralded as an artist who successfully synthesized American Indian themes with abstraction and surrealism. Morrison, a member of the Grand Portage Chippewa, was a long time resident of the Arrowhead Region.
The Arrowhead Arts Award Ceremony will be held on Friday, May 9th, at 6 p.m. at the Betsy Bowen Studio, 301 1st Avenue West in Grand Marais, MN. The awards ceremony will be part of the Jazz Art Underground Sneak Preview.
Past recipients of the Arrowhead Arts Awards:
George Morrison Artist Award: George Morrison, visual artist, Grand Portage; William Bastian, tenor, Duluth; Lewis Jenkins, poet, Duluth; Gladys Koski Holmes, visual artist, Angora; Ellen Olson, Native American bead artist, Grand Portage; Allen Fields, dancer and choreographer, Duluth; Barton Sutter, poet and essayist, Duluth; Carl Gawboy, painter, muralist, illustrator, educator, and advocate of American Indian Art, Duluth; and Cecilia Lieder, printmaker, founder and director of Northern Prints Art Gallery and Calyx Press, Duluth.
Maddie Simons Advocacy Award: Jay Andersen, past Executive Director of the Grand Marais Arts Colony, Grand Marais; John Steffl, past Artistic Director of the Duluth Art Institute, Duluth; Michael Ricci, Artistic and Managing Director of Theatre at Hibbing Community College, Hibbing; Dorian Beaulieu, art instructor at Lake Superior College, Duluth; Betty Brown, painter and art advocate, Carlton; David Marty, Executive Director of the Reif Arts Council in Grand Rapids; Eileen Keen, writer, musician and art advocate, McGregor; Marek Fuller, musician, founding member of the Two Harbors Folk Festival, community activist, and arts advocate, Two Harbors; and Paul Deaner, arts administrator, arts educator, volunteer, and theater artist, Finland, MN.