Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts 2010

Born in San Antonio, landscape painter Woody Gwyn grew up around Midland, Texas before he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and later moved to the village of Galisteo, New Mexico in 1976. Since his first exhibition in Canyon, Texas in 1965, he has painted for nearly five decades.

Gwyn’s paintings exhibit precision, clarity, light and space, and reflect the landscapes of West Texas and New Mexico. His work has been exhibited and collected throughout the United States and is represented in numerous museum collections, including the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, Albuquerque Museum, Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis and Phoenix Art Museum.

Taos artist Tom Noble is a lifelong New Mexican celebrated for his watercolor scenes of the region’s cultural icons and landscape.

A third-generation Taoseño, Noble attended the University of New Mexico’s College of Fine Arts in the mid-1960s. While at UNM, Noble was encouraged to develop his art career, particularly in the watercolor medium.

Although primarily known for his watercolors, Noble also works in acrylics and other mediums. He is recognized for sharing his gift, teaching others his art, and supporting community organizations. Noble makes his best work affordable by creating a series of high quality giclee prints for anyone to enjoy.

Photographer and teacher David Scheinbaum of Santa Fe has made photographs since 1974 and has taught photography since 1979 at the College of Santa Fe and through photographic workshops. He is professor emeritus and director of the Marion Center for Photographic Arts at the college.

Scheinbaum is also a respected authority on the art and history of photography. He worked with the preeminent photo historian Beaumont Newhall from 1978 until Newhall’s death in 1993, and continues as co-executor of his estate. In 1980, he and his wife Janet established their Santa Fe photo gallery, Scheinbaum & Russek Gallery, Ltd. Today, the gallery represents the estates of both Newhall and Eliot Porter, features their own work, and shows the work of photographers such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Minor White, Sebastiao Salgado, Laura Gilpin, and many others.

Schienbaum’s work is represented in public collections throughout the world, including the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida; Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; J. Paul Getty Museum in Santa Monica, California; Bibliotech Nationale in Paris, France; and New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. His books include Stone: A Substantial Witness and Images in the Heavens, Patterns in the Earth: The I Ching, both published by the Museum of New Mexico Press.

His projects seek to document Hip-Hop music and culture. An exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in February 2008 was titled, Recognize: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Portraiture.

Santa Fe santera Arlene Cisneros Sena is a nationally and internationally acclaimed artist who creates religious images resplendent with intricate and detailed depictions using natural pigments and gold leaf.

Sena has been honored with numerous awards at Spanish Market including the first-place prizes in the highly competitive retablo (devotional painting) category, as well as the coveted Archbishop’s Award. In 1994, Sena’s artwork was chosen for the official Spanish Market poster. She received the Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1998.
Her work is in many private and public collections. Sena has a piece (done in collaboration with fellow Santa Fe artist Lawrence Baca) in the Vatican. In 2003, Sena was commissioned to paint the altar screen (reredos) of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, and her work is featured in other churches including Santa Maria de la Paz and Saint Anne’s.

Paul Shapiro of Santa Fe is a celebrated international artist whose work is collected by museums, galleries and private individuals throughout the world.

Shapiro came to Santa Fe in the early 1980s and immediately established a name for himself as a strong representational painter. In the early 1990s, he shifted his focus and began to produce abstract work, a style for which he known today.

Shapiro’s paintings have been shown in diverse venues including Roswitha Gallery in Zurich, Switzerland; the Art in the Embassies Program in Copenhagen, Denmark; and at the Los Angeles and Fort Worth Art Expos. His work is represented in private collections, including those of actor Jack Nicholson, art collectors Anne and John Marion, Neutrogena Corporation, AT&T, Swope Museum, and New Mexico Museum of Art.

Santa Fe-based actor Wes Studi through his portrayal of Native American characters in motion pictures and television has been an important counter to stereotypical representations of American Indians found in film and media, and the further marginalization of Native people.

Studi has been in more than 60 films and TV shows and has established himself as a premier Native American actor of his generation. Studi received the 2009 Santa Fe Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award and won a First Americans in the Arts Award for his role as Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn in PBS Mystery Theater’s Thief of Time.

Studi is also a musician, sculptor, teacher, and author of two Cherokee language children’s books.

A native of Oklahoma, Studi has lived in New Mexico for more than 20 years, and has encouraged the development of film production in New Mexico and supported the growth of filmmaker training and apprenticeship programs. He has also taken a national leadership role in the promotion and preservation of indigenous languages.

Marian and Abe Silver Jr. have long served as ambassadors for the arts in Santa Fe and throughout New Mexico, and are recognized for their broad contributions to the community.

The Silvers were recently named Santa Fe Living Treasures for their contributions to arts. For decades they have served as volunteers, donors, and board and committee members for numerous organizations, including the New Mexico History Museum, New Mexico Museum of Art, and Spanish Market, and have a notable and long-term association with the Santa Fe Opera.

Abe Silver is a former member of the New Mexico Arts Commission, and Marian Silver has devoted years of commitment to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and state museums.

The Whited Foundation is a private foundation that has benefited many cultural, educational, and charitable organizations in the Raton area since 1997.

The foundation was created in memory of James and Leila Whited, who for many years owned a music and jewelry story in Raton. Jim Whited was leader of the Raton City Band and Leila was a pianist. Graduates of Colorado College in Colorado Springs, the Whiteds, had no children and died in their mid-90s in 1996.

“The foundation supports scholarships in the arts and has given funding to about 20 different local organizations including major grants to the Raton Arts and Humanities Council, Raton MainStreet program, and Raton Public Schools,” said Bill Fegan, local arts leader and past recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award.

For over 20 years, Working Classroom, a multidisciplinary arts organization in Albuquerque, has been devoted to theater, visual arts, literature, and public art, with and for young people from historically ignored communities. Participants are also offered access to academic tutoring, college scholarships, and counseling services to build a community of young artists who often pursue artistic endeavors in college and beyond.

Guided by nationally and internationally renowned mentoring artists and other professionals, Working Classroom’s students learn self-discipline as they create visual arts, such as painting, mixed media, and sculpture. They also learn to curate and create art exhibitions; produce, direct and act in theater productions; and write and publish books for elementary school children.

Working Classroom’s young actors have performed Off-Broadway, as well as at the Latino Chicago Theater and World Congress on the Family in Columbus, Ohio. The students have represented the United States at the VII International Festival of Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro. The city of Toronto invited Working Classroom student artists to Canada to teach professional artists how to replicate its community mural program.

For over forty years, actor and filmmaker, environmental and arts advocate, Robert Redford has followed his passion for filmmaking of social and cultural relevance, and has encouraged others to express themselves through the arts.

Since its founding in 1981, Redford’s Sundance Institute, is dedicated to the support and development of emerging artists, and the national and international exhibition of new independent cinema. The Sundance Institute’s acclaimed Screenwriting, Directing, Playwrighting, Producing, Composing, and Editing Labs take place at the Sundance Resort in Utah, and have fostered more than a generation of innovative voices in independent film.

Redford’s long history of visiting and working in New Mexico has led to the new collaboration between Redford Enterprises and the State of New Mexico called Milagro at Los Luceros, with both Redford and Governor Richardson as driving forces. The Milagro initiative, based at the state-owned historic Los Luceros ranch property located along the Rio Grande north of Española, features a series of labs and workshops focused on expanding training programs, that showcase Native American and Hispanic voices in filmmaking, and increasing job opportunities for Native American and Hispanic filmmakers.

In 1998, he produced and directed the film version of the John Nichols novel, The Milagro Beanfield War, shot on location in Truchas. Redford was also executive producer of a Tony Hillerman series for PBS MYSTERY!