Anthony Caponi, Hillcrest Community School and More Receive Ordway's 2012 Sally Ordway Irvine Awards

The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts today announced the recipients of the 2012 Sally Ordway Irvine Awards. Now in its 21st year, the Sally Awards honor extraordinary achievement in the visual, performing and literary arts.

The 2012 Sally Award winners are:

COMMITMENT: Anthony Caponi

INITIATIVE: Faye M. Price and Noël Raymond

EDUCATION: Hillcrest Community School

ARTS ACCESS: David J. Fraher and Arts Midwest

VISION: Jimmy Longoria

The Sally Awards are a living tribute to the vision of Sally Ordway Irvine, who mobilized the community to support her dream of a new performing arts center in downtown Saint Paul. The awards are presented annually to honor individuals and institutions that strengthen and enrich Minnesota with their commitment to the arts, arts education and arts access. Throughout the past two decades, the Ordway has been privileged to honor more than 75 outstanding artists, administrators, volunteers and organizations through these awards.

This year's Sally Awards were dedicated to the memory of Smokey Ordway, Sally Ordway Irvine's brother, who was a stalwart supporter, advisor, board member and friend of the Ordway for nearly 30 years. Mr. Ordway died in May 2012; his wife Marge passed away in January 2013.

The 2012 Sally Award recipients were selected by a committee consisting of Ordway representatives, the 2011 Sally Award recipients, Minnesota State Arts Board and media representatives, and other leaders from the Minnesota arts and cultural community. The 2012 Sally Awards program is supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board, Minnesota Public Radio and Saint Paul Hotel.

Commitment Award: Anthony Caponi: Anthony Caponi has often been referred to as a modern Renaissance man because of the breadth of his interests and accomplishments. He is an artist, philosopher, poet, civic leader and environmentalist. He is also an educator and professor emeritus at Macalester College where he taught and chaired the Art Department for more than 40 years.

Caponi has made many contributions to the cultural history of the state in the areas of art, education and creative placemaking. He is the grandfather of stone carving as an artistic medium in Minnesota and created the 32-ton "Granite Trio" sculpture that is the centerpiece of downtown St. Cloud. He introduced the technique of lost-wax bronze casting and shared it with other teachers, sculptors and jewelers. Caponi was instrumental in changing college curricula, elevating studio art to the same level as other academic subjects. While at Macalester, he literally brought art out of the basement by creating the design for the first art building in the country equipped with a metal foundry and professional tools.

Fighting against the mounting pressures of suburban development in the 1980s, he built working relationships with local and state government to protect 60 acres of land and create Caponi Art Park in Eagan, a cultural center where the grounds are designed as a work of art and conventional artworks and mature oak trees provide the backdrop for programs featuring all forms of artistic expression.

Caponi's career spans the time when much of the rich cultural community we take for granted in Minnesota today was developing. Bronze and stone sculptures, public art, studio art degrees, campus art buildings and the need to preserve the environment are so pervasive today that most people could not imagine a world without Anthony Caponi's innovations.

Initiative Award: Faye Price and Noël Raymond: Faye M. Price and Noël Raymond are co-artistic directors and co-center directors of Pillsbury House + Theatre. They are leading the transformation of the 130-year-old community center and the 22-year-old professional theater into a one-of-a-kind, arts-integrated social service center providing more than 24,000 people a year with affordable day care, after-school programming and more while offering professional theater that strengthens community cohesion and inspires connections and change.

A theater-maker all her life, Price has performed on many local and national stages and was a founding Acting Company member of both Mixed Blood Theater and Penumbra Theatre, where she most recently performed in "The Amen Corner." As a dramaturg at the Guthrie, Price collaborated on more than 30 productions. At Pillsbury House, she has brought the voices of some of the country's most challenging and exciting living playwrights to the Twin Cities, including Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," David Harrower's "Blackbird," and the world premiere production of "Buzzer" by Tracey Scott Wilson.

Price is the current vice chair of the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts board of directors. She earned the 2006 Catherine Lealtad Service to Society Award from her alma mater, Macalester College, and was awarded the first August Wilson Fellowship to study dramaturgy and literary criticism. She received her graduate degree from the University of Minnesota.

Noël Raymond helped found the Burning House Group Theatre Company in 1993 and is currently a core member of Carlyle Brown and Company. She has taught acting and theater movement and has performed with Park Square Theatre, the Burning House Group, the Guthrie Theater and Penumbra Theatre as well as the Hangar Theatre in New York. Raymond's directing credits include "The Pride," "No Child...," "Underneath the Lintel," "Far Away" and "Angels in America, Parts I and II" at Pillsbury House Theatre; "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" for Carlyle Brown and Company; "From Shadows to Light" at Theatre Mu; and multiple staged readings and workshops through the Playwrights' Center.

Raymond is a past board chair of the Multicultural Development Center and was a founding member of the South Minneapolis Arts Business Association. She is currently vice chair of the Minneapolis Arts Commission and last year co-authored a case study of Pillsbury House + Theatre for the book "Building Communities, Not Audiences."

Education Award: Hillcrest Community School: After several years of careful planning by parents, teachers, administrators, and others, Hillcrest Community School opened its doors in September 1991. One of ten elementary schools in the Bloomington public school district, Hillcrest strives to provide an environment where each student is able to be successful. It was designed around one basic question: "What is best for children?"

For the past two years, Hillcrest staff and students have been on a journey integrating the arts into curricular areas of reading, math, social studies, and science, fulfilling its current mission statement that emphasizes a love of teaching and learning: "Hillcrest is more than a school. We are a joyful community of learners. Together through the arts, we inspire, challenge and empower." To meet this mission, Hillcrest is delivering academics through a unique framework called Artful Learning.

Artful Learning schools are joyful, active, engaged learning communities where parents, teachers and students come together to explore the great achievements, big ideas and perplexities of human thought. State- or district-mandated standards form the core of the teacher-designed study units and are brought to life through arts-infused, inquiry-based learning. Students consider universal concepts, actively explore masterworks, and investigate, research and create with a wide variety of materials and strategies. Reflection, focused on deepening the learning, encourages students to make connections across disciplines, understand their own learning process, and set goals for future learning. Artful Learning schools cover and exceed the mandated curriculum.

Community involvement is evident at Hillcrest Community School. Through countless hours working in the classrooms, chaperoning field trips and coordinating fundraising efforts, parents are an important part of life at Hillcrest, as are businesses, universities and organizations that provide volunteers, partnerships and generous program funding.

Arts Access Award: David J. Fraher and Arts Midwest: For the past 36 years, David J. Fraher has directed his creative skill to building and leading arts organizations and programs throughout the U.S. He has been at the helm of Arts Midwest since its inception, first as executive director and now as president and CEO. Through programs such as Arts Midwest World Fest and Arts Midwest Touring Fund, which are dedicated to bringing domestic and International Artists to underserved communities, Arts Midwest has introduced audiences young and old to engaging arts experiences. Through visual arts programs, especially the touring of Wing Young Huie's work, Arts Midwest has provided new audiences with access to Minnesota artists. Finally, through leadership development programs such as ArtsLab, Arts Midwest has strengthened organizations in Minnesota and ensured they have the capacity to reach new audiences and fulfill their missions.

Today, Arts Midwest promotes creativity, nurtures cultural leadership, and engages people in meaningful arts experiences throughout its nine-state region. Its cultural programs, including performances by high-quality theater, dance, and music ensembles; arts education activities; exhibitions; and conferences reach close to a million people, enhancing the quality of life in hundreds of cities, towns, and rural areas across Minnesota, the greater Midwest and the nation.

David Fraher currently serves on the board of the Alliance of Artists Communities and is an ex officio member of the Arts Midwest board of directors. In 2012, he was selected as a Fellow to the Salzburg Global Seminar. In 2007 he received the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies' Gary Young Award for contributions to public support for the arts, and in 2008 he received the National Endowment for the Arts Chairman's Medal for distinguished service.

Vision Award: Jimmy Longoria: Jimmy Longoria's humble beginnings on a farm in South Texas continue to inform his work today. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Pitzer College, working with masters of art, such as Rufino Tamayo, and business innovation, such as Peter Drucker and Edwards Deming, while developing his own vision of giving back to the community through art.

Longoria's unique and signature painting style is recognized for its dazzling color, contrast and multiple layers. His mural technique is passed on to youth through his organization Mentoring Peace Through Art, where youth are fully immersed in the process of deterring gang graffiti with exuberant community-based art, and classrooms are turned into mural companies, where each student is challenged to produce results. In both programs, youth are mentored in Jimmy's vision that giving back to the community is the highest form of art.

Longoria's commitment to giving back to our community led Target Corporation to label him as "Someone We'd Like You to Meet" in a 2004 national campaign featuring people who embody Target's spirit of giving back to the community. The McKnight Foundation honored him with a Virginia McKnight Binger Award in Human Service in 2008, and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board awarded him the 2013 Reverend DR. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Living the Dream" Award.

Longoria is the recipient of a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship and the only Minnesotan to have art in the Permanent Collection of Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art. His art was chosen to represent Hispanic Art for the 25th anniversary symposium of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, a national gathering of Fortune 100 corporate executives and influential Hispanic leaders.

The Ordway is widely recognized as one of the nation's leading nonprofit performing arts centers and Saint Paul's most elegant and inviting performance space. The Ordway's Music Theater and McKnight stages attract diverse audiences with an array of productions showcasing the finest in American musical theater, world music, dance, and vocal performance. Education and community engagement are integral to the Ordway's mission, with major initiatives including the annual Flint Hills International Children's Festival and Ordway Education programs that serve more than 50,000 students annually. The Ordway also serves as authorizer for the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, a professionally guided academic and artistic environment that trains aspiring pre-professional performing artists. Together with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Opera and The Schubert Club, the Ordway is a member of the Arts Partnership and serves as the principal venue for their performances.