ArtsATL, the nonprofit dedicated to quality arts journalism in metro Atlanta, has announced the winners of its second annual Luminary Awards. The honorees will be celebrated Jan. 28 at a private event at City Winery at Ponce City Market. They are:
ROBERT G. EDGE. Wins the Amaranth Award for philanthropic legacy. The senior counsel at the Alston & Bird law firm is chairman of the Charles Loridans Foundation, which annually supports such organizations as Actor’s Express, the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Chamber Players, Atlanta Opera, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Franklin Pond Chamber Music, Horizon Theatre, the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, the Museum of Design Atlanta, the Rialto Center for the Arts, 7 Stages, the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse, Spivey Hall and Theatrical Outfit, among others.
SUE SCHROEDER. Wins the inaugural Halcyon Award for outstanding leadership. Schroeder, artistic director and co-founder of CORE Dance, has been part of the local arts scene for 30 years. Her choreography includes collaborations with composers, visual artists, musicians, writers and artists of every discipline. In 1994, Schroeder piloted the Atlanta Dance Initiative, which encouraged collaboration between 12 dance organizations over a two-year period.
OUT ON FILM. Wins the Beacon Award for community engagement. The annual October festival, which turns 30 this year, champions the LGBTQ community and its allies by screening more than 120 films over 11 days. The festival, run by arts journalist Jim Farmer, has earned a national reputation. It regularly partners with such organizations as Atlanta Pride, Georgia Equality, The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival and SAGE Atlanta, among others.
VIRGINIA HEPNER & MYRNA ANDERSON-FULL. Share the Joan P. Garner Outstanding Service to the Arts Award presented in partnership with Fulton County Arts and Culture. Hepner led the Woodruff Arts Center as president and CEO for five years, and was instrumental in raising funds and stabilizing both the Woodruff and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She retired at the end of the fiscal year in May. Anderson-Fuller led the Hammonds House Museum in southwest Atlanta for 13 years, retiring as executive director on April 30. She is passionate about children’s programs and initiated partnerships with the Wren’s Nest, the Atlanta Printmakers Studio and BURNAWAY, which offered workshops and activities for children and teens. The award is named for Fulton County Commissioner Joan Garner, who died this year.
FABIAN WILLIAMS, YOYO FERRO & PETER FERRARI, ETC. Share the Catalyst Award for Social Discourse with the artists and activists who successfully stopped city of Atlanta mural regulations. The group, which includes artists Williams, Ferro and Ferrari, activist Grant Henry and lawyers Gerry Weber and Zach Greenmyre.
IDEAL CAPITAL. Wins the Kindle Award for Innovative Practice for finding new ways to fund emerging artists in greater Atlanta. The organization, founded in 2008, has expanded from one to 11 grants and supports writers, musicians, art collectives, dancers, filmmakers and curators.
This year’s judges were led by chairman Ivan Pulinkala of Kennesaw State University’s dance department. He was joined by dancer Blake Beckham of Lucky Penny; Georgia State University’s Ken Bernhardt; Georgia Tech’s Madison Cario; Katherine Dirga of MARTA; C4 Atlanta’s Audrey Gamez; Leslie Gordon of GSU’s Rialto Center for the Arts; Sarah Higgins of the Zuckerman Museum of Art; Bem Joiner of the Center for Civic Innovation; Tina Lilly of the Georgia Council for the Arts; Aurora Theatre’s Ann-Carol Pence; the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Josh Phillipson; Atlanta Music Project’s Dantes Rameau; Doug Shipman of the Woodruff Arts Center; Steffen Sornpao of Good Enough Gallery; and Ife Williams of the Hudgens Center for the Arts.
ArtsATL was co-founded in 2009 by arts journalists Catherine Fox and Pierre Ruhe. Fox, who was the longtime visual arts critic of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, left the website’s day-to-day operations at the end of 2015. Ruhe had been the AJC’s classical music critic. He left ArtsATL in 2011 to become director of artistic administration at the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in Birmingham.
