Story and photography by Amanda Koehn
The Cleveland Arts Prize celebrated another year of Northeast Ohio artistic talent, skill and dedication at the organization’s 64th annual awards event Oct. 24 at Cuyahoga Community College East Campus in Highland Hills.
Since 1960, the Cleveland Arts Prize has celebrated and helped foster diverse artistic expression, honoring visual artists, musicians, organizational leaders and others contributing to the vibrant local arts community.
Ellen Stirn Mavec, president and chairman of The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation since 1997, received the Barbara S. Robinson Prize for the Advancement of the Arts for her work as an art entrepreneur, philanthropist, cultural leader and arts advocate. She is also board chair of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Introducing the award, Paul Westlake, senior principal of DLR Group, said he’s observed Stirn Mavec’s impressive work with nonprofit arts and cultural organizations.
“She forms relationships with institutions, partners with them, mentors them and challenges them to think bigger and better,” he said.
Over $117 million in funding has been directed to Cleveland arts organizations during Stirn Mavec’s tenure at The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, she said while accepting her award. The foundation is very proud of its standing as one of the largest funders of arts in Cuyahoga County, especially in Cleveland’s University Circle, she added.
“The abundance of true cultural gems is what makes Cleveland, our small, approachable city, superior to most big cities,” she said.
Dr. Ronald and Eugenia Strauss, founders of CityMusic, a Cleveland professional chamber orchestra that makes classical music accessible through free concerts and programming, were awarded the Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts. Introducing the award, David Krakowski, board president of CityMusic, said the couple has dedicated their lives to musical and visual arts. However, in the last 20 years they pursued “an entirely new and radical concept – that of providing musical excellence and innovation at no cost to those who might have otherwise been deprived of the chance to experience great music because of their inability to afford attending performances or simply inaccessibly to such events,” he said.
As Ronald could not attend, Eugenia accepted the award.
“What really behind the scenes happens is that we also nurture the talent of many young musicians here in the city in the hope that they are not going to go to other places, but will settle in Cleveland,” she said.
Shannon Morris, founding executive director of Artful Cleveland, was honored with the Robert P. Bergman Prize for her commitment to making visual artistic pursuits accessible to all, said Robin VanLear, creator and former director of the community arts department at CMA.
“In Shannon’s world, the arts would be among our most revered occupations,” VanLear said introducing the award. “… In Shannon’s perfect world, the arts would be a lucrative profession.”
Morris told the crowd she started out as an artist who sought a collaborative environment which led her to start Artful Cleveland in Cleveland Heights.
“In nine years, we successfully fulfilled our mission to establish and nurture a safe, inclusive and affordable space that supports and educates artists in their mission to create, sell and display their art, while making creativity and inspiration more accessible to the community at large,” she said. “… Artful became more than I ever dreamed as part of an arts, culture and education hub in the Coventry PEACE Building, a magical place filled with generosity and possibility.”
She said Artful is now being “forcibly displaced” from the space, referring to the Heights Libraries Board of Trustees Oct. 21 vote to terminate the leases of nonprofit tenants in the PEACE Building at the end of January, as cleveland.com reported. She said finding a permanent home for it will “take time, a fresh board and a great deal of money.”
“However, we are not deterred,” she said. “This award has strengthened my resolve, this award has fortified me and reignited the passion I will need to build another Artful.”
Visual artist Barbara Bosworth, who grew up in Novelty, received the Lifetime Achievement Artist Award. Bosworth is a photographer focused on the relationships between people and nature. Barbara Tannenbaum, curator of photography at CMA, introduced Bosworth.
“(Bosworth’s photos) go beyond artfulness and visual pleasure – their purpose is also to help us, we who spend much more time indoors, removed from nature, remember that we are part of nature, not separate from it,” Tannenbaum said. “That is a profound and a critical lesson in our age of climate crisis.”
Bosworth, now living in Massachusetts, told the audience for the past four decades she has photographed the American landscape with a large-format camera, which all started in Northeast Ohio as a child connecting with nature.
“The Ohio landscape deeply shaped who I am and inevitably influenced my life and photography,” she said.
The Mid-Career Artist Award was given to Clint Needham, a Northeast Ohio composer who “has made a profound impact on contemporary music,” said Jason Hanley, vice president of audience engagement at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, who introduced the award.
Accepting the award, Needham said he’s grateful to be part of an “incredible” arts city.
“As artists, we should take pride in living in such a relative creative city, and as arts organizations in our city, please continue to support and champion the incredible and relevant homegrown talent that surrounds us all,” said Needham, who is composer in residence and professor of composition at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Performing Arts in Berea.
Photographer and artist Amber N. Ford was honored with the Emerging Artist Award. The Cleveland-based artist’s work is “redefining the narrative and visual storytelling in our community,” Lillian Kuri, president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation, said to introduce Ford.
“Amber’s photography is deeply rooted in themes of identity, race and the Black experience, bringing often overlooked stories to the forefront,” Kuri said. “She masterfully captures the beauty, strength and humanity of her subjects, telling stories that resonate far beyond the frame.”
Ford told the audience while accepting her award that she took her first photo class at age 14, and “never put the camera down since.”
“It truly takes a village, and I wouldn’t be who I am without my family, my teachers, my friends and the support this city has and continues to show me,” Ford said.
Kabir Bhatia, WKSU senior reporter at Ideastream Public Media, served as master of ceremonies, delivering jokes throughout the night. Additionally, the Ohio Contemporary Ballet based in Shaker Heights performed a dance and harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, a 2011 CAP winner, played the memoriam performance, honoring artists and cultural leaders with local ties who died this year.
