As a part of Arts Every Day’s tenth year celebration, Envision. Create. Transform: Baltimore Youth Through the Arts, on Friday March 10th, 2017 we will honor educators, artists, philanthropists, cultural organizations and public servants who have made a significant impact in the field of arts education over the past ten years. Congratulations to all of the honorees! Buy tickets for the recognition ceremony here.
Honorees
Arts Education Advocacy
Mary Ann Mears
Presenter: Dr. Nancy Grasmick
As an artist who believes in the important place of art in daily life, Ms. Mears has been committed to nurturing the arts and arts education in her work in the non-profit sector as a volunteer arts advocate. She believes that it is critically important for each person to have access to meaningful and high quality arts experiences throughout their lives. The issue of equity of access for children is particularly compelling for her.
Her achievements include being a founder of Maryland Art Place and helping to craft and successfully lobby for Maryland’s Public Art Bill. She is a trustee of Maryland Citizens for the Arts. Mary Ann is the founder of Arts Education in Maryland Schools (AEMS) Alliance. She serves on the Maryland State Department of Education’s Fine Arts Education Advisory Panel.
Arts Philanthropy
Lara Hall, Blaustein Philanthropic Group
Presenter: Ellen Bernard, Baltimore Community Foundation
Lara Hall is a senior program officer with the Blaustein Philanthropic Group, staffing the Rosenberg, Hirschhorn and Roswell foundations as well as the Health and Mental Health and Education and Arts programs of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation. In that role, Ms. Hall provides guidance to grantseekers, prepares proposals for Trustee review, and monitors funded projects and organizations. Prior to joining the Blaustein Philanthropic Group staff in January 1998, Ms. Hall worked for the CollegeBound Foundation and Baltimore Reads. She holds a Master of Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University with a focus on nonprofit management. Ms. Hall has been an adjunct faculty member of the Notre Dame University of Maryland, where she taught a graduate course in Grant Writing. Currently, Ms. Hall chairs the Arts Affinity Group of the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers, organizes a local funders group interested in mental health, and is an active participant on a number of committees related to public school reform in Baltimore City, including chairing the Baltimore School Climate Collaborative.
Emerging Teaching Artists
Unique Robinson and Brian Gerardo | Cynthia Chavez from Baltimore Dance Crews Project
Presenter: Joyce J. Scott
Unique Robinson
Unique Mical Robinson is a writer, performer, artist, educator, & proud Baltimore native. Since age 13, she has had the fortune of connecting and performing with a variety of communities throughout the US, and even Havana, Cuba. She received her MFA in Poetry from Mills College in 2014, and holds a BA in Creative Writing/Black Studies from Hampshire College in 2009. Her book, flicked/forgotten/freed, made its debut in May 2014. She is also 1/4 of Pr3ssPlayPoets, a dynamic Oakland female poetry collective. They produced their stage play, The State of Black Bodies, to sold out audiences in 2015. Her poems and stories have been published in three anthologies regarding black and queer bodies, including The Reader, The Womanist, and Blues Arrival. Part of her mission is to ensure healing through art remains accessible to all. She is the Director for Dew More Baltimore, a professor in Humanistic Studies at MICA, and a Poetry/Performance Teaching Artist in middle and high schools across Baltimore.
Brian Gerardo | Cynthia Chavez from Baltimore Dance Crews Project
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Arts Institution
Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Presenter: Rheda Becker and Robert Meyerhoff
Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene, a music director of vision and distinction who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives”. She is recognized throughout the world for her innovative approach to programming and for her deep commitment to education and to the development of audiences of all ages.
Her outstanding success as Music Director of the Baltimore and São Paulo Symphony Orchestras has been recognized by extensions to her tenure, until 2021 and 2019 respectively. Alsop has guest-conducted most of the world’s great orchestras including: Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles; the Royal Concertgebouw, La Scala Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
In September 2013, Alsop made history as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in London and was immediately reinvited for 2015. Alsop is the recipient of numerous awards, including many for her extensive recordings. As at protege of Leonard Bernstein, she was awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize and is the only conductor to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Alsop is also Director of Graduate Conducting at The Peabody Institute.
Community Arts Organization
Jubilee Arts Baltimore
Presenter: The Hon. Catherine Pugh
Jubilee Arts, a program sponsored by Intersection of Change, is a comprehensive art program that uses art as a catalyst for social change and as a tool for empowerment. Jubilee Arts offers 23 art classes (in ceramics, visual arts, dance, and art business) six days a week and cultural activities to both children and adults and serves over 2,500 people annually. Classes are offered in three semesters and each class culminates with a closing program or exhibit. The program is also reviving an arts legacy along historic Pennsylvania Avenue which was once the center of African-American culture and entertainment in Baltimore City. Instead of allowing this community to be defined by drugs and violence, participants have the chance to initiate change in their community through designing and participating in art classes, murals, festivals, and art exhibits.
In 2015, Jubilee Arts expanded its older youth programming in direct response to the civil unrest in April 2015. Art@Work is a summer youth employment program that employs 80 teens, ages 14-21, to create highly visible murals and mosaics. Partners for this program include the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development’s Summer Youth Works Program and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts. Art@Work has employed 124 youth over the last two summers who have created 15 murals in the Sandtown-Winchester and Upton communities.
Youth in Business is an after-school entrepreneurship/leadership program for high school youth 14-21. The program offers three weekly classes in ceramics, fashion, and business. The youth design, market and sell various art work to include tee shirts, ceramic mugs, holiday tree ornaments, holiday cards, jewelry, tote bags, and matching flower pots and address signs. The youth sell their art products at community events, faith based institutions, and fund raisers.
Public Service
The Hon. Maggie McIntosh
Presenter: Anne S. Perkins
Maggie McIntosh first entered the House of Delegates in 1992 when she was appointed to fill a vacant position in the 42nd District, which contained neighborhoods from Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Maggie first served on the Appropriations Committee, where she chaired the Personnel Subcommittee and was a member of the Education and Economic Development Subcommittees. Delegate McIntosh later assumed the position of Vice Chairman of the Commerce and Government Matters Committee before being named House Majority Leader by Speaker Casper R. Taylor in 2001. She is the first woman in Maryland history to have held the post.
Delegate McIntosh has been recognized by many different groups for her legislative work and advocacy. She has been recognized by The Daily Record as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women in 1998, 2000, and 2009 and been enshrined in their prestigious Circle of Excellence. The Women’s Law Center has awarded her their Dorothy Beatty Memorial Service Award for her work on behalf of expanding legal rights for all women and their families.
Delegate McIntosh is a former teacher in the Baltimore City Public Schools, as well as an adjunct professor at Catonsville Community College and the University of Baltimore. She is an active member of the Maryland Democratic Party, having previously served for eight years as a member of the Democratic Central Committee from Baltimore City and attended the 2008 and 2012 Democratic National Conventions. Prior to her election she served as State Director and Campaign Manager for U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski.
Arts Education Leadership
Krystal Williams
Presenter: Sia Kyriakakos, 2017 National Teacher of the Year Finalist
Mrs. Krystal Williams had humble beginning as the youngest daughter of two from a single parent born in poverty and raised in a Southeast, D.C. neighborhood. In 1992, Her mother, Vivian Vines succumbed to a short battle with pneumonia as a result of complications from the AIDS virus. Her mother’s dying words to her 12 year old daughter was to “educate herself out of the ghetto”. After her mother’s death, her aunt and uncle gained sole custody of her and her sister, Briana. Prince George’s County where she would be raised and educated until graduating from Gwynn Park High School in 1999. After graduating, she enrolled as a Music major at Morgan State University in Baltimore. After graduating, she continued her education holding on to her mother’s advice and graduated from dual programs with a M.A. in Music Education from The College of Notre Dame and a M.A. in Conducting from Morgan State University in 2009. Following graduate school, Mrs. Williams began working for Baltimore City Schools. Before taking the helm at Western Senior High School, Mrs. Williams was Director of Bands at Baltimore Freedom Academy, and KIPP Ujima Village Academy. Mrs. Williams is sought after as a multi-talented musician. She served as principal clarinetist at Morgan State University, pianist and arranger at Healthy Choice Ministries Cathedral, teacher-resident- musician with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and as a musician in multiple theatrical productions. In addition to administering and managing the instrumental music curriculum at Western, Mrs. Williams oversees and conducts the Western Concert and Honor Bands and the Combined Jazz Band.
Arts Education Mentorship
Clare Grizzard
Presenter: Dr. Sonja Santelises
Clare O’Malley Grizzard has worked with the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model® (BTT) since its inception. She continues to train educators to integrate the arts as part of the BTT model, including the arts’ value in effective teaching and learning. Clare teaches at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School, an award-winning model school for arts programming in Baltimore City. She serves as the school’s Fine Arts Coordinator and Arts Integration Specialist. As adjunct professor at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Clare mentors in pre-service training for MICA’s Center for Arts Education. She also serves as adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where she is a curriculum specialist for the School of Education, working on research team studying the effects of arts education. With a long career in independent consulting in museum education, she has taught adults and children at the Walters Art Gallery, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Clare received her B.F.A from Pratt Institute and her Master’s in Art Education from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has been recognized by the MAEA as Maryland Elementary Art Educator of the Year, was twice named Baltimore City Art Teacher of the Year, and was named MetLife Ambassador in Education.