Winners of 2009 Lakefront Festival of Arts Announced

Milwaukee, WI, June 20—More than170 artists vied for top spots at the 47th annual Lakefront Festival of Arts (LFOA), one of the premier juried art festivals in the country. Winners were announced at this morning’s annual Saturday awards breakfast.

This year’s winners are:

Marvin Blackmore, Ceramics, Dolores CO
Chia Haruta, Printmaking, Hanover MI
Susan Hill, Fiber – Non-Wearable, Kansas City MO
Carol Menninga, Mixed Media 2D, Roscoe IL
Sue Mersman, Wood, Wetmore KS
Dona Look and Ken Loeber, Jewelry, Algoma WI
Patricia Palson, Fiber-Wearable, Contoocook NH
Bruce Peeso, Painting, Monson MA
James Petran, Painting, Iowa City IA
R. Michael Wommack, Drawing/Pastel, Langhorne PA
            
Each winning artist will each receive a cash prize of $1,000, a commemorative art piece designed by the LFOA Design Award-winning artist, and an invitation to return to the festival for the next three years.

This year, the commemorative art piece given to the winning artists is designed by Scott Roach, a sculpture artist from Salt Lake City. Roach works primarily with wall-hanging sculpture, incorporating carved and textured wood with patinated metal.  

Honorable Mentions:
 
Matthew Adelman, Painting, Oberlin OH
Jack Brumbaugh, Drawing/Pastel, Tracys Landing MD
Chris Coffey, Photography, Akron OH
Michael Cole, Photography, Hannibal MO
Leon Fontier, Metal, Penn Yan NY
Larry Fox, Sculpture, Omena MI
Matthew Hatala, Wood, Danielsville GA
Clare Malloy, Painting, Chicago IL
Michael Santini, Painting, Mequon WI
Diana Stetson, Printmaking, Albuquerque NM
Taman VanScoy, Painting, Long Beach CA
Kreg Yingst, Printmaking, Pensacola FL

Those artists recognized with an Honorable Mention are guaranteed an invitation to return to the festival in 2010.

JURORS
The jurors this year are John Garrett, sculptor and fiber artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico; Katie Gingrass, owner of the Katie Gingrass contemporary art and fine craft gallery; and Dean Sobel, director of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver and the Milwaukee Art Museum’s former chief curator and curator of contemporary art.

CO-CHAIRS AND SPONSORS
This year’s co-chairs are Ryan Gray, senior investment consultant at Robert W. Baird, and Laura Lukas, director of quality assurance at Rockwell Automation. The festival is produced by Friends of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s largest support group.

The 47th Lakefront Festival of Arts is presented by Quad/Graphics and Milwaukee Magazine and is sponsored by Miller Lite, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, State Farm Insurance, Northwestern Mutual Foundation and Concordia University.
 
FESTIVAL HOURS
Saturday, June 20:      10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sunday, June 21:        10 a.m.-5p.m.

TICKETS
General public:            $10 at the gate
Kids 16 and under:      Free with a paid adult
MAM members:           $7 with valid membership card

PARKING AND FESTIVAL ACCESS
Official parking is available for $7 per car on Lagoon Drive. To park here, follow the signs traveling north on Lincoln Memorial Drive and turn right onto Lagoon. A complimentary shuttle will provide continual transportation to and from the parking area as well as the south Festival entrance. Attendees can park their bikes free in the Festival’s bike corral located inside the south Festival entrance.
 
Parking is also available for a fee at O’Donnell Park (enter from Lincoln Memorial Drive). Disabled visitors and their companions may enter the festival through a wheelchair-accessible entrance of the west side of Lincoln Memorial Drive (located near the entrance to O’Donnell Park).
 
ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a Collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine “Best Design of 2001.” For information on the Milwaukee Art Museum, please visit www.mam.org <http://www.mam.org/> .

ABOUT THE LAKEFRONT FESTIVAL OF ARTS
What originally started more than 50 years ago as an event at a private residence where art was hung on clotheslines has grown to Milwaukee’s Lakefront Festival of Arts, an event that has dazzled art enthusiasts and artists from around the country. LFOA attracts more than 20,000 art enthusiasts and festival-goers alike each year during its three-day run thanks to its winning combination of art, entertainment and great food.
 

###