Arty Awards arrive after two-year waiting game

Despite the rise in COVID cases, things are on the upswing at the Mobile Arts Council (MAC). The National Endowment for the Arts awarded MAC a $15,000 grant to support their community art gallery and public exhibition series. The funds will facilitate a showcase for roughly 350 artists in 17 exhibitions throughout 2022.

The biggest splash is from the reemerging Arty Awards. After a pandemic-induced hiatus, the fete honoring those who impact Mobile Bay area cultural life with excellence takes place Jan. 27, 7-9 p.m., at The Steeple on St. Francis (251 St. Francis St.).

Since its 2004 inception under the former moniker Greater Mobile Art Awards, the event has become a lodestone for cultural denizens. This year’s versatile class of winners shows why.

The honorees are:

Arts Educator — Amanda Youngblood

A successful artist and float builder in her own right, Youngblood has made a tremendous impact as an art instructor at St. Paul’s Episcopal School and the University of South Alabama for the last four years. She also teaches privately out of her studio.

Arts Soldier — Frida Schnitzler

A wealth of volunteerism in the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program keeps Schnitzler on the scene in various cultural endeavors. She also puts her know-how to work as MAC’s bookkeeper.

Business — The Downtown Mobile Alliance

The Alliance has put art in the public realm. They have boosted performance events like SouthSounds, Campo Santo and the Sweet Summer Series. They have furthered a mini grant program to support festivals, installations, fashion shows and other creative displays.

Cultural Innovation — Alabama Contemporary Art Center (ACAC)

ACAC hosted programs like Postcards from Quarantine that extended help to the community during pandemic-induced lulls, micro-commissioned yard art and charged the Black Lives Matter chalk art event while keeping with a regular rotation of shows in their gallery. They joined the Warhol Foundation in regranting and administering $60,000 in relief grants to Alabama artists.

Visual Artist — Soynika Edwards-Bush

Edwards-Bush has been ACAC’s artist-in-residence since 2020 and recently returned from exhibiting at Miami’s Art Basel. Her paintings hang around the region and in the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery. 

Danielle Juzan Performing Artist Award — William “Bill” Watts

This local actor has been active in every Mobile-area theater for the last four decades, including in national award-winning casts as well as First Night Mobile, the Christian Legal Society and the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference. He has been a narrator and performed in Reader’s Theater for the Mobile Public Library, the Salvation Army, Operation M.O.B.I.L.E., Outback Mobile (Camp Grace) as well as numerous dramatic presentations in area churches.

Literary Artist — Lawrence Specker

For around a quarter-century, Specker has carved out a sterling reputation as an entertainment and cultural reporter. His integral role was heightened as the ranks of colleagues thinned over the last decade, yet Specker has more than proven his worth. His work has touched numerous lives and furthered aspirations.

Musical Artist — Headphones On

When COVID-19 sent performance venues into dormancy, Sergio Rangel and All This Entertainment sprouted a grassroots effort to stream live music online. Lagniappe Music Editor Steve Centanni offered his Midtown home as a studio where local bands were fed a home-cooked meal, interviewed and then performed.

Organization — Mobile International Festival

Since 1983, this event has magnified Mobile’s mélange of residents who trace their roots to other shores. They annually fill the Mobile Civic Center with food, art and live performances from the various global cultures that come together around Mobile Bay.

Patron — Mary and Charles Rodning

Mary Rodning is an award-winning artist and her physician husband, Charles, has a knack for Japanese poetry. Still, it is their philanthropy that led to their names on the third-floor art gallery in the University of South Alabama Library, a space they created and secured.

Lifetime Achievement — Scott Wright

Scott Wright is general and artistic director of Mobile Opera, a singer, conductor, composer, actor, arts patron and advocate, and conductor-in-residence for the University of Mobile’s Alabama School of the Arts. Since 1979, he has performed countless operatic and musical theater roles in almost all area venues and served as a director and officer of the Mobile Arts Council, Mobile Opera, Mobile Theatre Guild, Joe Jefferson Players and Chickasaw Civic Theatre. His compositions have been featured in recent concerts at the University of Maryland and the University of Southern Mississippi.

The ceremony includes refreshments and performances by the Symone French Trio, Chickasaw Civic Theatre, Mobile Ballet, Bent Broadway and Mobile Opera.

Tickets to the event are still available by calling 251-432-9796 or going online to mobilearts.org.

Congratulations to all!