Silvermine Arts Center Announces Honorees For Living Art Awards

NEW CANAAN, CT — Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan recently celebrated its centennial at its annual Living Art Awards Gala.

According to a news release, the gala wad held May 21 at the Stamford Yacht Club. As it marks 100 years as a vibrant center for artists, art education, and contemporary art exhibitions, Silvermine paid tribute to visionaries who have made a significant commitment to enriching lives through art’s transformative power.

"Each of these honorees has been an inspiration in the Silvermine community and beyond," Silvermine CEO Barbara Linarducci said in a news release. "Our centennial is the ideal time to celebrate their innovative endeavors and remarkable accomplishments."

The Living Art Award was presented to the Colgate-Palmolive Company for its international leadership in areas of health, sustainability, and social impact as well as its educational programs and scholarships. Brigitte King accepted the award on behalf of Colgate-Palmolive.

According to the arts center, Colgate-Palmolive has been a generous donor to Art Partners, Silvermine's outreach education program that brings curriculum-based art projects to underserved students in Stamford, Norwalk, and Bridgeport.

Jan and Robert Dilenschneider are the recipients of Silvermine’s Legacy Award, a special award given to individuals who through their philanthropy and dedication have created an impact that has lasting benefit to Silvermine and society.

According to the arts center, the Dilenschneiders live their mission to elevate cooperation and understanding globally through education and the arts. They recently established the International Fulbright Artist Residency, which offers emerging artists from around the world an immersive environment on Silvermine's campus to create their art as well as access to instructors in a wide range of mediums to develop new pathways of creativity.

Three longtime members of the Silvermine Guild were honored with 2022 Artist Awards: sculptor and installation artist June Ahrens, painter and printmaker Marilyn Clements, and sculptor and painter Judith Steinberg.

According to the arts center, Ahrens is a sculptor and installation artist, and has been the recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Duracell International, and the Polaroid Foundation. She was also nominated for a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. She received the Distinguished Advocate for the Arts Award from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts as well as an Individual Artist’s Grant.

Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and resides in the permanent collections of several universities and museums, with the latest acquisition by the Kemper Museum in Kansas City.

"Over the years my art has explored the issues of fragility, vulnerability, danger, and healing," Ahrens said in a news release. "These themes continue to surface, especially today, and I respond to them as best I can—through a visual language that takes many forms and shapes, often unexpected and surprising.

A painter and printmaker, Clements came to Connecticut from Toronto, where she was a faculty member at the Sheridan College of Art teaching drawing and painting. She became an artist member at Silvermine and had the opportunity to work with Yale Professor Robert Reed, who was teaching artist workshops and advanced seminars.

"This was a very fruitful period of my life," Clements said in a news release. "I began a serious meditation practice, which has grown and deepened over the years. Both the content and process have been an important influence on my work. Travels to Bali and to India have further influenced the direction my work has taken and opened me to new possibilities in imagery expressed in printmaking as well as painting."

Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in New York, New England, Canada, and Europe, and she is represented in numerous corporate and private collections.

Steinberg is a Connecticut-based painter and sculptor whose work sometimes incorporates recognizable images but is often abstract.

Steinberg became an artist member of the Silvermine Guild a few years after beginning her studies there and has served on its Board of Trustees several times. She is deeply committed to both the school and the Guild, and to the friendships that arise from them, according to the arts center.

"Discovering Silvermine and the relationships that developed because of it have been the greatest gift," Steinberg said in a news release.

In addition to her involvement in Silvermine, Steinberg is an elected member of the Sculptors Guild. She has had public installations in a number of locations, including New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, as well as the Netherlands.

Further information can be found at www.silvermineart.org.