2012 Sally Award-winners. Photo courtesy of Ordway Center for Performing Arts

Monday evening, April 8, Ordway Center for Performing Arts (a Knight Arts grantee) recognized the 2012 Sally Irvine Ordway Award-winners for their achievements in visual, performing and literary arts. Sally Awards are bestowed specifically to honor Minnesota artists and institutions for their efforts on behalf of the arts, arts education and arts access for local communities.

This year’s winners were selected by a committee consisting of Ordway representatives and leaders in the arts and culture community and media representatives, the 2011 Sally Award recipients and Minnesota State Arts Board.

The 2012 Sally Award-winners:

The Commitment Award went to Anthony Caponi – sculptor, college educator and founder of the Caponi Art Park cultural center in Eagan, Minnesota.

Pillsbury House and Theatre co-directors Faye M. Price and Noël  Raymond received the Initiative Award, for their ongoing transformation of the 130-year-old community center into a “one-of-a-kind, arts integrated social service center” with programming that includes high-caliber professional theater, as well as affordable childcare and after-school programming which benefits more than 24,000 people annually.

The Education Award went to Hillcrest Community School in Bloomington, Minnesota for its integration of arts education into its elementary curricula for math, reading, social studies and science, as part of a framework called Artful Learning.

Arts Midwest and its CEO David J. Fraher received this year’s Arts Access Award, in recognition of the organization’s efforts to connect new audiences with work by Minnesota artists and to cultivate area arts leadership, through professional programs like ArtsLab.

Award-winning muralist and founder of Mentoring Peace through Art, Jimmy Longoria, received the Vision Award for his work with youth, putting their creative talents to use in their communities as a way to deter gang graffiti with “exuberant community-based art.”

To find out more about the history of the Sally Awards and this year’s winners, visit www.ordway.org/sallyawards.