Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts

Mayor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts Recipients 2024

Arts: an artist or organization doing exceptional work in film, literary, new media, performing, visual, and other arts.

Lucy Lippard

Lucy Lippard is one of the most acclaimed art writers of our time. She changed what art writing could look like and continues to shift it with each book she writes. Hugely influential in the art world of New York, beginning in the 1960s with the Art Workers Coalition and later Heresies Collective, her impact on New Mexico is equally prodigious. Her writing, curating, and involvement with local organizations, from the Railyard Art Committee to SITE Santa Fe to editing Galisteo's monthly newsletter, will have ripple effects long into the future. New Mexico fits into a larger progression in Lippard's approach to art writing. She began writing about ecology, eco art, and landscape around 1970, and Native art around 1980. Since moving to northern New Mexico in 1992, Lippard's writing has grown increasingly local and place-centered, focusing on land use and history here in New Mexico. Her recent book Undermining examines gravel as a metaphor and land art, among many other subjects, and her book Pueblo Chico: Land and Lives in Galisteo, New Mexico, Since 1814, is a history of the tiny village. For the last twenty-three years, Lippard has produced and edited the village's monthly newsletter, El Puente de Galisteo, so Galisteo residents are used to being written about by one of the world's best-known art writers.

Arts Education: an outstanding educator or organization who inspires and engages students through the arts.

The Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate Program

bynnerfoundation.org

The Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate (SFYPL) program began in 2018 and partners with the National Youth Poet Laureate program, which celebrates our nation's top youth poets who are committed to artistic excellence and civic engagement. The SFYPL is the only such program in New Mexico. Since its inception, more than 150 students from Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Taos, Navajo Nation, and Ohkay Owingeh have participated in the program. The SFYPL program has created a cohort of young poets who know each other, support each other, and perform together.

The SFYPL program partners with Santa Fe schools, businesses, and public and private organizations to support young poets. Collaborations exist with the Kiwanis Club, the Santa Fe Public Library, the Santa Fe International Literary Festival, the NM Department of Education, Collected Works, and the Jean Cocteau Theater, which provides graduating youth poet laureates with stipends to offset their college tuition expenses.

The Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate program links young people to our city's vibrant arts community and economy. It also values them as active producers in Santa Fe's web of creative practices. The program provides opportunities for Santa Fe's young poets to take their place in a larger continuum of arts learning in our town and beyond.

Arts Innovator: an artist or organization who has created innovative programs or techniques.

The Exodus Ensemble

exodusensemble.com

The Exodus Ensemble is a trailblazing, immersive theater company that transforms canonical texts into contemporary, high-octane theatrical events. For the past four years, this group of passionate, talented young theater artists have put their all into bringing their unique approach to art and entertainment to Santa Fe. Whether wildly transforming canonical texts from Shakespeare to Chekhov or crafting boldly original new work, Exodus creates an immersive experience that allows audiences to step into their world of story and become a part of the narrative. At every performance, they show how theater has the power to transport us to new dimensions, challenge our perspectives, and ignite our imaginations.

Especially noteworthy is the Exodus Ensemble's model of operating on a donation scale, ensuring that anyone can attend their shows, regardless of their financial situation. Audience members contribute what they can or wish to support the organization. This approach breaks down financial barriers and fosters a sense of community and inclusivity through their art.

Culture Connects: an artist or organization that engages underserved communities through an equity, inclusion, and accessibility lens.

Hernan Gomez Chavez

hernangomezchavez.com

Hernan Gomez Chavez has demonstrated exceptional dedication to community engagement and social justice. He uses his art as a powerful tool for dialogue and advocacy, focusing on pressing issues such as home, belonging, and displacement. One of the most remarkable aspects of Hernan's work is his free art program at Pete's Place, where he extends his passion for art to Santa Fe's houseless community, often paying for supplies out of his own pocket. Hernan demonstrates his unwavering commitment to fostering creativity and empowerment by providing arts education to underserved populations. His practice extends from his individual experience to a global context, providing insights and entry points for diverse audiences to engage with his work.

Melissa Engestrom Youth Artist: artist aged 21 or younger who has demonstrated artistic excellence and commitment to the arts.

Hanbi Park

Hanbi Park has been the principal violinist in the Santa Fe Youth Symphony Orchestra (YSO) for two years and has been a leader in their orchestras, both musically and socially, for even longer. Hanbi leads by example and helps empower those around him. He's respectful and thoughtful and remarkably tenacious and focused in his work. He has worked at every challenge put in front of him and steadily climbed to become one of the finest young musicians in the symphony's programs. He is also the recipient of the 2023-2024 Rick Lohmann Memorial Scholarship.

Philanthropy: an individual or organization whose charitable work advances arts and culture in Santa Fe.

Ed and Maria Gale, Gale Family Foundation

santafecf.org/news-stories/donor-gale

Maria and Ed Gale are committed to supporting and elevating our communities of Northern New Mexico. With tremendous generosity of monetary resources and time, the Gales have made significant contributions to many nonprofits in the arts and education. They are currently and have in the past been active on myriad boards in Santa Fe, including the Center for Contemporary Arts, The Museum of New Mexico Foundation, Santa Fe Prep, the International Folk Art Market, and The Lensic. They have funded or helped fund these organizations' operations and have supported many important exhibitions and programs. The Gales are also the founding sponsors of the Santa Fe International Literary Festival and supporters of Star Axis, Charles Ross's monumental work of land art east of Las Vegas, NM.  Maria and Ed Gale care deeply about the Santa Fe community and their generous support has made a difference to many organizations and many individuals in the arts.