2018 Award Winners

Advocate ACE Award – Kelly Hieronymus, for her tremendous passion, vision, and enthusiasm, for her inspiration and encouragement of youth, local artists, and art supporters, for her role in helping create a community of artists that support and promote each other, and for utilizing her outstanding talent and creativity to embrace and advocate for the entire arts community.

Artist ACE Award – Peg Shaw, for making work that is publicly accessible yet deeply personal, work that commands a large room while engaging the individual viewer in a quiet, intimate space, for the immersive power of her work through the courageous revealing of her personal story, for evolving and developing compelling new ways to contribute to the local arts community, inspire students, support colleagues, and the people around her.

Volunteer ACE Award – Jim O’Brien, for sharing his passion for poetry and spoken word in an engaging and supportive manner, for his dedication in creating a venue for writers of all levels to gather, discuss, interact and share their voice, for enthusiastically supporting this creative community and inspiring authors to read and display their craft and connect individuals from all walks of life.

Business ACE Award – Exile on Main Street, for their tireless support of local music and art including providing a stage for festival use as well as local and touring acts and commissioning a ceiling mural, for supplying local bands with a venue to sell new releases and related merchandise, for creating an accessible and accommodating space to showcase the amazing talent in our community.

Teacher ACE Award – Brandon T. Washington, for merging his dual passions for music and education into an unrivaled ability to ignite creativity in young people, for his infectious love of music and continuous support and encouragement of those around him,  for tirelessly supplying guidance, dedication, and empowerment in assisting local youth to discover their own voice. 

Student ACE Award – Natalie Wakefield, for her outstanding artistic achievements at such a young age, for her impressive humility and desire to continue to develop new techniques and discover new media, for her successful and inspirational collaborations with fellow students and the community as a whole, for her grounded attitude and enthusiastic encouragement of those around her.

Lifetime ACE Award – Dorothy Martirano, for the quality of her musicianship which is rivaled only by her qualities as a human being who cares for her community and the world at large, for her astounding accomplishments including local and national contributions, for her immeasurable ingenuity, breadth of experience, and collaborative endeavors with local and regional partners, which combined have long established her as an absolute treasure of our musical community.  

The winners were chosen from over 95 public nominations by an independent panel of community-based judges.

Air Jordan 1 Low Releasing in Smoke Grey/Red