The Tucson Pima Arts Council honored the area's artistically finest Thursday night with its annual Lumie Awards.
Ceremonies were held at the Temple of Music and Art. Those honored:
• Emerging Arts Organization: The four-year-old Rogue Theatre, praised for drawing in new audiences from all over Southern Arizona and its various educational programs.
• Established Arts Organization: The venerable Tohono Chul Park on the Northwest Side, which "exhibits . . . art as a mirror to reveal the beauty of our region and the diversity of our peoples and our history, co-mingling the aesthetic values of the natural world and our reflections on it as its human inhabitants and stewards," according to the TPAC citation.
• Arts volunteer: Frank M. Lopez, a longtime Sahuarita Elementary School volunteer who teaches students doll-making. TPAC officials wrote that Lopez's "enthusiasm is contagious, and his encouragement and critiques of the student work is honest but positive; his patience and care with students is extraordinary."
People are also reading…
• Arts supporter: Ruth Baron, who founded and financially supports two theaters — Live Theatre Workshop and Beowulf Alley Theatre Company. Both have their own space, and each has a commitment to bring the arts to children through strong children's programming, TPAC officials wrote.
• Arts educator: Renee Blakeley, director of the Pistor Middle School dance program. A trained ballet and modern dancer, Blakeley teaches hundreds of students dance and offers them performance opportunities. In addition to their dance skills, the kids walk away with leadership skills and "immeasurable boosts of self-esteem," awards organizers said.
• Arts education organization: The Symphony Women's Association. It's been the association's mission since its founding in 1952 to keep music alive in the desert, and it has done it through a variety of outreach programs that include offering free weekly lessons on seven instruments, including piano, at its Music Education Center. It also provides loaner instruments and materials to 148 students.
• Business partner: Ventana Medical Systems in Oro Valley. For the past six years, Ventana has housed one of the region's largest free community gallery spaces and supports local art and artists. For the last eight years, it has sponsored a noteworthy two-dimensional art competition and exhibition.
• Individual achievement/ emerging artist: Louis David Valenzuela. It took him 36 years to find himself artistically, and when he did come into his own, he created sculptures, masks and paintings that were both an homage to his Yoeme culture and a gift to Tucson.
• Lifetime achievement: Eva Zorilla Tessler. The dancer, choreographer, actor, director and playwright creates art that delivers aesthetically and socially on an international level. In addition to training young and emerging artists, she teaches dance at Tucson High Magnet School and is an associate artistic director of Borderlands Theater, as well as co-founder of the Latina Dancer project. TPAC officials said her body of work "delivers a much-needed dose of social responsibility for the promotion and progression of opportunities for Latinos as a whole. ... (It) entertains audiences from an artistic standpoint, but also challenges them to think about social justice and other issues affecting the Latino community."
