For 64 years, the Cleveland Museum of Art has celebrated the artists who define our city’s creative community and the champions who keep it alive. On Oct. 24, Cleveland Arts Prize honors a new group of creative minds who embody Cleveland’s arts scene by helping us see our city and neighbors in new ways, activating unexpected venues of creation and supporting the next generation of talent.
Ellen Stirn Mavec, Barbara Robinson Prize for the Advancement of the Arts
Mavec has been cultivating Cleveland’s creativity ever since she brought her love of decorative arts from London to her namesake galleries in the Playhouse Square district in the 1980s. Today, Mavec is the president and chairman of the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation and an active board member of the Cleveland Museum of Art since 1991. “It’s a huge blessing and opportunity to support organizations throughout Northeast Ohio, and to be recognized for decades of support and interest in the arts,” she says.
Barbara Bosworth, Lifetime Achievement Prize, Visual Arts
Growing up in Novelty, Bosworth learned how to see the world through a rectangle. Looking out the window of her childhood living room, she photographed the surrounding scenery in the forests of Griswold Creek. The 71-year-old was recently recognized with a solo exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art, in which she used telescopes and cameras to capture celestial images of the eclipse, sunsets and more. “It’s quite an honor because all of my pictures come from Northeast Ohio,” says Bosworth. “The landscape here is my touchstone.”
Shannon Morris, Robert P. Bergman Prize
Morris has funneled her creative energy into founding and maintaining the nonprofit Artful Ohio, which has created 24 handicap-accessible studio spaces in Cleveland. “When you fight so long for something, and all of a sudden you look up and people are noticing what you’re doing,” Morris says. “It’s an amazing feeling.”
Dr. Ronald and Eugenia Strauss, Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts
The Strausses are the foundation of CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, which is dedicated to prioritizing arts education and making classical music accessible with programming and free concerts. “We feel honored to receive the Martha Joseph award, especially in light that we knew Martha and the incredible work she and her husband achieved during their lifetime,” the Strausses say. “We are humbled.”
Amber N. Ford, Emerging Arts Prize, Visual Arts
Ford’s passion came into focus in her high school photography class. “I picked up the camera at 14 and never sat it down,” she says. She’s used visual arts to capture humanity in a way that’s personal, community-based, textural and inviting. Ford’s photography has been exhibited at Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Akhso Gallery, George Fox University and in publications like The Atlantic and the Collective Arts Network Journal.
Clint Needham, Mid-Career Prize, Music
Needham is proud to have built a career doing what he loves. “I strive to create music that feels like it belongs in the 21st century,” he says. “My influences are quite eclectic, creating a kaleidoscope in my music.” Needham now teaches at Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. In addition to school ensembles, he’s heard his music played by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and as far abroad as the Sydney Opera House.
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