2005 Governors Arts Awards
Nominees

The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts received 21 nominations for the 2005 Governors Arts Awards. Members of the Governors Arts Awards Selection Committee, appointed by State Arts Council Chairman James Patrick Kelly of Nottingham, recommended seven of these nominees for the 2005 awards to Governor John Lynch and Dr. Susan Lynch, who is the Honorary Chairman of the awards program.

Governor John Lynch and Dr. Susan Lynch officially announced the award recipients on October 25, 2005, followed by a reception honoring all of the nominees. On April 13, 2006, the recipients will be presented with original artworks, specially commissioned as awards, at the State Arts Council’s 40th Anniversary performing arts gala to be held at the Capitol Center for the Arts.

The Governors’ Arts Awards are presented every two years to recognize outstanding, sustained accomplishments in arts education, arts patronage, arts support by a town or city, cultural access leadership, distinguished arts leadership, and lifetime achievement as artists.

The nominees are… Lifetime Achievement
There are two of these awards: the Lotte Jacobi Living Treasure Award for professional artists in any discipline whose career included formal arts study and the Folk Heritage Award for traditional artists whose craft or performing art tradition has been passed informally from generation to generation.

• Barbara Fisher, rug braider, Mount Sunapee
• David Lamb, furniture maker, Canterbury
• Peter Randall, photographer, Portsmouth
• Claude Smead, basket maker, West Swanzey
• Christopher Williams, architect, Meredith
• Gerry Williams, studio potter, Dunbarton
  

Sustained Achievement
There are five of these awards: Community Spirit, Individual Arts Patron, Distinguished Arts Leadership, Arts Education, and Cultural Access Leadership. Each category recognizes sustained accomplishments (over a minimum of five years) that have contributed to the excellence, growth, support or availability of the arts for New Hampshire citizens.

• City of Portsmouth
• Concord Community TV
• Joan Farrel, Concord, Multiple Arts Organizations and Artist Patron
• Pam Tarbell, Concord, Owner, Millbrook Gallery & Sculpture Garden
• Kim Barber, Lincoln, Artistic Director, North Country Center for the Arts - Papermill Theatre
• Nancy Hill, Stratham, Co-chair, Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program
• M.T. Mennino, Concord, Director, Capitol Center for the Arts
• Shelley Nason, Manchester, Board President, Exeter Center for Creative Arts, Manchester
• Richard Adams, Portsmouth, Former Director and President of Portsmouth Athenaeum, Portsmouth
• Roger Brooks, Principal, Beaver Meadow School, Concord
• Eric Gagnon, Gwen Baker, Steve Cirillo, Portsmouth Public Schools Music Department
• NH Dance Institute, Dance Education, Keene
• TIGER - Theater for Behavioral Change, Plymouth
• Capitol Center for the Arts, Concord
• Concord Community Music School, Concord

The Governors Arts Awards is a program of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and has been supported by New Hampshire’s Governors since 1980.