2022 ACE AWARDS

The 2022 Awards Breakfast, the first live ACE event since 2019, was held June 15, back at the Shore and Country Club, Norwalk. The breakfast event celebrated the joyful resilience of the arts and culture and its power to bring communities together, especially in times of crisis.

CAFC President, Cheryl Williams, opened the proceedings, and James Naughton was once again our entertaining Master of Ceremonies. Keynote David Lehman, Commissioner of Connecticut’s Dept of Economic and Community Development, testified how during the pandemic, he learned from colleagues Elizabeth Shapiro, head of the CT Office of the Arts, and Jason Mancini, ED of CT Humanities, not only about the economic impact of the arts in CT ($10 billion in 2020), but also how arts and culture operate as a tool for healing, for creating spaces to have nuanced conversations about complex issues, for bringing virtual classes and performances to those isolated during COVID, as a bridge to facilitating conversations about inequity and injustice, and more. Shapiro and Mancini also spoke at the event, and Lehman, Shapiro, and Mancini will continue working closely together to remake the funding of the state’s cultural infrastructure.

2022 AWARDEES:

Artist: Alicia Cobb is a multi-faceted visual artist and emerging leader who is a source of inspiration for the local community and beyond. Alicia’s signature medium is body painting. She treats the human body as a sacred canvas, has been praised for her artistry, and placed in the top ten of a national competition. Her 2020 PBS interview with Ray Hardman on his “Where Art Thou?” series on Connecticut’s cultural identity was selected as one of the top 5 in the series. Alicia is also an accomplished muralist: several of her works are featured throughout the city of Bridgeport. She is a member of the Marketing Committee of the Bridgeport Downtown Special Services District and has been Co-Chair of the annual, day-long Jane’s Walk celebration of local, civic and community leaders.  Alicia’s intersectional lived experience as a biracial woman has been omnipresent throughout her work. She is also a teaching artist who connects with students through arts integration residencies, and curricular enhancement programs. She specializes in designing curricula to foster creativity, curiosity, self-awareness, and authenticity, using visual art as a conduit to help others process the world and events around them more fluidly. Alicia’s devotion to young artists is especially inspiring.

Citizen: William D. Felton has been the chairman of the board of directors at the Westport Arts Center for over ten years. A leader among leaders who inspires the best in those around him, he has fostered and developed a board community that strives for excellence and productivity. He was key in moving the Westport Art Center to its next level of success, leading the multi-year effort to find, secure and improve its new home, as MoCA Westport, on Newtown Turnpike. His bold selection of the new name, physical location, and supervision of its design and construction, matched his choices of a world-class professional team to curate and produce shows and performances through the pandemic. The new building will serve the organization, and Fairfield County, for generations to come with many notable exhibits, concerts, programs and opportunities to unite our various towns through the arts.  The Felton family has provided strong financial support not only to MoCA Westport but also to many other Fairfield County arts institutions and artists. His unwavering commitment to the arts, his leadership, guidance, passion and philanthropy, is an inspiration for others to follow. Sponsored by Gary Cosgrave and Lundberg Family Foundation.

Corporate: For more than 150 years, Fairfield County Bank’s community leadership has extended far beyond banking. The Bank, and its President Daniel Berta, have been strong supporters of the arts in Fairfield County for decades, giving financial support and  participating in the arts and cultural life in each town they touch. A good neighbor, community champion, and generous benefactor, the Bank is well known for its commitment and a passion for giving back.  In 2021, Fairfield County Bank donated more than $1MM to local non-profits, and the Bank’s employees collectively volunteered more than 3,500 hours with charities throughout Fairfield County. Over the last five years, the Bank has donated $700,000 in corporate contributions specifically to 55 arts and culture nonprofits, providing over 675 volunteer hours. Ten employees have volunteered in leadership roles with arts and culture organizations, and the Bank places many more volunteers and gives professional advice to the sector. Overall, these and many other examples demonstrate Fairfield County Bank’s dedication to making arts and culture available to everyone in our community through the organizations that make it possible.

Educator: Pam Lewis/Connect-Us has led a life of creating innovative and developmental after-school programs. Her work as a youth organizer began in 1984 as a producer of grassroots community talent shows in New York City. Throughout her decades-long career, Pam has worked with thousands of young people to create new performances in their lives. In 2017, Pam established the Bridgeport-based nonprofit Connect-Us, a youth development organization that connects suburban and urban neighbors in Fairfield County through a suite of free after-school programs that leverage a performance-based approach to youth and community development. Pam is dedicated to creating meaningful partnerships with local schools, nonprofits, businesses, and residents across Fairfield County. Connect-Us’s programs help young people to develop the skills they need to be successful in life –– whether it’s writing a resume, discussing social issues, working as part of a team, or finding their voice. As one former participant put it: “This organization feels to me like a kind of heartbeat for young Bridgeport creatives.”

Nonprofit: City Lights/Bridgeport Art Trail is an artist-led nonprofit organization that “serves the community through art.” Under the leadership of Suzanne Kachmar, City Lights and Co is an art gallery but is also much more. City Lights has tirelessly promoted the artists of Bridgeport, giving them their first art exhibitions, training artists as educators, assisting them to write grants to provide culturally enriching programming, championing public arts projects, organizing participation in Make  Music Day, and much more. City Lights may be best known for creating the Bridgeport Art Trail (BAT), the largest celebration of the arts in Fairfield County, with more than 6,000 visitors streaming through city-wide open studios and attending gallery shows, music, and poetry slams during the 13th BAT in 2021. City Lights also created the annual Greater Bridgeport Pride event in 2010 and represents for many the furnace of creativity that is growing in Bridgeport.  Sponsored by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.

President’s Award: Alexandra Davern Korry (1959-2020) was a trailblazing lawyer, educator, and civil rights advocate, who was instrumental in the abolition of solitary confinement for juvenile inmates in New York City, was head of the New York State Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights, and chair of the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, serving 300 young people a year, changing lives from middle school through college, with academic enrichment, social and cultural exposure, and individual attention. That commitment sparked another project: the Norwalk Art Space. Alexandra envisioned the space before her diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She found the property, a 1935 former Christian Science Church, adjacent to Mathews Park, Norwalk, realizing it was perfect for an art gallery, studios and classrooms. She envisioned a space that would enhance educational opportunities for under-served students, promote under-represented local artists, and provide the public a welcoming space to enjoy art and music.  Alexandra worked with Westport architect Rick Hoag, shepherded it along while sick, but passed away before construction was completed. The Norwalk Art Space building, ADK House, is named in her honor. The renovated building was recently recognized by Preservation CT with an Award of Merit.

AWARD BREAKFAST SPONSORS

We are very grateful to our sponsors who supported this important annual event: Cindy Raney & Team and Fairfield County Bank (Gold Sponsors), WSHU a gold-sponsor-level media partner, Gary Cosgrave, The Lundberg Family Foundation and Spinnaker Real Estate Partners (Award Sponsors), and Cohen and Wolf and Leifer properties (Silver Sponsors). We also wish to thank Elizabeth P. Ball and an anonymous donor as “Champions” of the event, and New Revenue Consulting for sponsoring this event at the “Friend” level.

Photographs of the event are by Barbara Loss. The video recording of the 2022 ACE Awards was made by Daniel Recinos and is available here. A 2-minute highlights reel is here. A short report is available here – and the program booklet is available here, at http://bit.ly/ace2022book.

2020 ACE AWARDS

The 2020 ACE Awards were a virtual, cocktail hour celebration, held on October 22, 5:30pm, with James Naughton as our live host and MC, who introduced short filmed interviews he conducted with our awardees. Tony Award winner Joanna Gleason then gave a live address on the essential role of music and arts education in her life and that of the wider community. Our vice president, Cheryl Williams, introduced the evening with comments on this tumultuous year for arts and culture, and Elizabeth Shapiro, Director of Arts, Museums and Preservation at the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development spoke about the resilience of the arts and culture in this difficult period in which we continue to struggle to survive the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

The awardees are as follows:

Artist: Miggs Burroughs is a lifelong resident of Westport, a full-time graphic artist, who has designed hundreds of logos, ads, brochures, and websites for commercial and non-profit clients throughout Fairfield County since 1972. He has won much acclaim for his lenticular photographs, that explore change and transition in his subjects, seen in many solo shows across Fairfield County. A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, Miggs has taught graphic design at Fairfield University and UCONN Stamford. He is a founding member of the Artists Collective of Westport, and was the first Artist in Residence at the Westport Library. Knowing how the art world works, Miggs rolls up his sleeves to help wherever he can. A mentor to many, Miggs is an indefatigable volunteer, who has been named Volunteer of the Year by several local nonprofits. Artist Award sponsored by Gary Cosgrave.

Citizen: Bernicestine McLeod and Harold Bailey are committed to working in tandem to extend their philanthropic and civic impact. Both attended Brown University and are now both Brown trustees emeriti. Bernicestine is President and Founder of McLeod Associates, an IT consulting firm, and was previously a Systems Engineer with IBM. Prior to his retirement as IBM’s Vice President of Lotus Marketing Integration, Harold worked at IBM for 30 years in marketing, sales, and services. They are now principals in a family-owned toy company — Aisha & Co, LLC. Both have leadership roles in TEAM Westport (Together Effectively Achieving Multiculturalism), a committee of the Town of Westport since 2005 — Harold as Chair and Bernicestine as Secretary. Harold is a board member of the Westport Country Playhouse and was a founding member of the Stamford chapter of 100 Black Men. Bernicestine has served on many local boards including the Westport Library and Fairfield County’s Community Foundation and is currently Board Chair of Bridgeport’s Mary & Eliza Freeman Center For History and Community, taking the lead in new capacity building, development, restoration, and advancement efforts.

Corporate: The SoNo Collection, owned by global real estate services company Brookfield Properties, opened in 2019 in South Norwalk as a modern boutique shopping center, with a commitment to supporting the arts, culture and community in Fairfield County. Arts Brookfield is a program of Brookfield Properties to present concerts, theater, dance, film screenings, and art exhibitions to bring public spaces to life through art. The SoNo Collection has already demonstrated its commitment to the Fairfield County community in many ways and has shown it to be a leader in corporate support for the arts. From initially seeking input and feedback from the arts and cultural community to hosting ongoing gatherings to explore collaborations, it has set a great example of corporate responsibility. Its current “Art at SoNo” program, featuring a wide array of local, national and international artists, is a testament to its creative thinking and expansive support for the arts. Award received by Matthew Seebeck, Senior General Manager. Sponsored by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.

Educator: Elizabeth M. Gaynor has been a dancer, teacher, arts advocate and pivotal figure in the performing arts in Connecticut for more than 50 years. In 1970, she founded the Elizabeth Gaynor Studio with a single class for five-year-olds in a small studio in her home. She served as principal teacher and director as the school grew and evolved first into the Southport Ballet School, then the Connecticut Ballet Theatre School and finally, in 1994, the Connecticut Dance School, widely known for its excellent standard of dance technique for its students. She has retired as director, but continues to serve as president of the not-for-profit organization. Beside teaching students, the school she founded offers scholarships to area children and provides outstanding performances in and for the public schools in the greater Bridgeport area. As a result, thousands of local children have the opportunity to experience the joy of a live dance performance.

Nonprofit: KEYS offers music education to Bridgeport students whose schools cannot provide it and whose families cannot afford it. It was founded by jazz musician, composer and music educator Rob Silvan, the current director, in 2004 in a hallway at Columbus School in Bridgeport, with its first four piano students. KEYS now operates in 25 Bridgeport schools, providing free one-to-one music education to over 600 Bridgeport children every year, as well as instruments for students, as needed, during the program. KEYS also offers after-school practice sessions, group music instruction and workshops, a non-audition orchestra, concert band, and chorus at Bridgeport’s Klein Auditorium, summer programs, an extensive Saturday program, and active collaborations with other non-profit organizations. KEYS believes a well-rounded education, including arts education, is a vital means of breaking the cycle of poverty. Its objective is to provide this essential part of an education that many are denied because of arts-starved school budgets and limited family financial resources.

Photographs of awardees are by Joseph Michael Lopez. The video recording of the 2020 ACE Awards is available here. The Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County expresses its greatest gratitude to Douglas Tirola and 4th Row Films for their superb professionalism and generosity in filming the award interviews for us. The program is available here, at http://bit.ly/ace2020book.