Helene Steene - Visual Arts Award
photo credit: Media Collaboratory
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Helene Steene’s work is well recognized for its many layered depths, intensity of colors, and elegance of surface. She combines classical oil glaze techniques and marble dust, with contemporary brushed metal on wood.
The sense of layered history from antiquity to more recent times as well as the ever changing sea by the Greek island of Paros, inspire many of her contemporary fresco surfaces. She also uses Ginkgo leaves as well as circles as inspiration, representing nature from ancient to present times and the concept of healing and harmony. Her work has been published, commissioned, exhibited, and collected, privately and publicly in the United States, France, Greece, Spain, Great Britain and Sweden, and she has won numerous awards for her work. www.helenesteene.com/ |
Bo List - Performance Arts Award
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Bo List is a Lexington native, and while he's lived other places he's always come back to Central Kentucky. He currently serves as Director of the Arts for Danville Independent Schools, while serving as occasional adjunct theater instructor at Transylvania University and as contributor to the Kentucky Humanities Chautauqua series of historical dramas (including pieces written about Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, Henry Clay, Daniel Boone, and Nancy Green). As playwright, he is best known for his original plays Ladies of Liberty and Ghost Music, as well as his adaptations Frankenstein, The Last Dracula, and R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). He served for eight years as Producing Artistic Director of AthensWest Theatre Company, nine years as Director of Theatre for Sayre School, and twelve years as Drama faculty for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts. Betwixt Lexington residencies, he has worked professionally in Chicago, Memphis, California, and New York.
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Margaret Verble - Janet Holloway Literary Arts Award
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Margaret's first novel, Maud's Line, was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016.
Her second novel, Cherokee America, was listed by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year for 2019 and won the Spur Award for Best Western. It is set in 1875 in the Arkansas River bottoms of the old Cherokee Nation West and is a prequel to Maud's Line. The books are linked both by their setting and by four characters who are young in Cherokee America and elders in Maud's Line. When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky is set in 1926 in the old Nashville Glendale Park Zoo. It was chosen by Booklist as one of the Best Novels of 2021. Margaret's fourth novel, Stealing, was released Feb. 7, 2023. Margaret is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a member of the Authors Guild and Western Writers of America. She lives in Lexington. www.margaretverble.com/ |
Dr. Lori Hetzel - Arts Educator Award
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Dr. Lori Hetzel celebrates her 30th year as Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Choral Music Education at the University of Kentucky, where she conducts the University of Kentucky Treble Choir and advises the a cappella group “Paws and Listen.” Dr. Hetzel also teaches undergraduate choral methods and conducting courses and supervises student teachers. She has created a dynamic partnership with local schools, providing students with valuable real-world teaching experiences throughout their academic journey. A respected leader in the field of choral music education, she is frequently invited to present at clinics and professional development events.
Dr. Hetzel has been instrumental in mentoring a generation of successful choral music educators across the country. She has received numerous accolades, including the University of Kentucky “Great Teacher of the Year” award. finearts.uky.edu/music/faculty-staff/lori-hetzel |
John and Jessica Winters - Arts Benefactor Award
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For more than a decade, Jessica and John Winters have facilitated the installation of large-scale murals by international artists throughout Lexington and have hosted annual gallery events to provide opportunities to local and regional artists.
PRHBTN is an annual celebration of art forms that have been criminalized, marginalized, and under-appreciated in the mainstream, featuring public murals alongside an exhibition of street art works in a space that complements the raw, powerful nature of the message and artistry of each piece. In 2022 with over fifty murals to their credit, they decided to no longer produce murals, although the hugely popular gallery exhibition of work will continue at The Lexington Art League's Loudoun House. Ever seeking ways to engage the public in an art experience, they are now shifting toward transformative, interactive pop-up pieces such as Call of Joy. www.prhbtn.com/ |
