Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application 1939 to Frank and Morta (Mineikis) Skuodas in Lithuania He lived in Lithuania until 1945 where he then ended up moving to Germany for six years Leon and his family made the decision to move to America in 1951 ending up in Sioux City He was drafted into the United States Army where he was honorably discharged in 1963 Leon married his best friend and love of his life Madonna Conrad on June 8 To this marriage they had six children.  Leon was a Construction Superintendent at WA Klinger until he retired in 2004 He was a member of the Carpenters Union and Men’s Club You could always find Leon playing Cribbage His family was top priority and loved spending every minute with them Leon will be truly missed by his wife of 59 years six children: Michael (Stephanie) of Sioux Falls Victor (Patty) Skuodas and George (Vicky) Skuodas He is preceded in death by his parents Frank and Morta Skuodas Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text Mater Dei Parish- Nativity Catholic Church This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors Audra Skuodas was an Oberlin-based artist who flew just around the level of radar- sometimes garnering the interest of national and international galleries. But she never fully broke through to the point of mainstream stardom. Five years after her passing, her children and local curators are championing her work to broaden its reach. Skuodas was born in Lithuania in 1940, and she spent six years of her early childhood living in a displaced persons camp in Germany. “They escaped when she was four and traveled across Lithuania to Germany, by foot, by wagon, by whatever transport they could get, hiding during the day, traveling at night,” said Skuodas’ daughter, Cadence Pearson-Lane. Skuodas arrived in the United States in 1949, and she went on to earn her bachelor's and master's degrees from Northern Illinois University. She married fellow artist John Pearson and had two children, Cadence and Jason. While both Pearson and Skuodas eschewed seeking larger fame in favor of the quiet family life of a small college town in Ohio, they were both dedicated artists with messages to share. Skuodas always felt she had a genuine amnesia for her early childhood, and specifically her time growing up in Lithuania and Germany, according to her daughter, Pearson-Lane. In some cases, complete memories were blocked out. “She had a complete amnesia of her past,” said Pearson-Lane. “My grandparents didn't talk about it because it was too painful, and she never really talked about it.” Skuodas attempted to work through that feeling of amnesia and alienation with her art, including “Self Portrait of Displaced Amnesiac Alien,” an autobiographical book of 53 unbound, sewn fabric pages that create a sort of abstract narrative. “It was so interesting to me that she used the medium of sewing to talk about her life up to that point. And that started me thinking about the role of sewing in her work,” said Emily Liebert, curator of contemporary art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “I started to really see sewing as a metaphor for some of the things that she was talking about in her art. This idea of piercing a surface, creating pain, but then also, mending.” Skuodas was part of a wave of feminist artists that came about in the 1970s, but she was never appreciated as a leader of that movement. Skuodas never stopped producing art while raising her children, however she did miss out on the chance to see how far she could go in the world of art as she lacked the opportunity to promote herself adequately, unlike her husband, Pearson-Lane said. John Pearson’s fame overshadowed Skuodas’ and his place on Oberlin College’s faculty in some ways relegated her to a forgotten role. “When they moved here, my father was a professor and my mom was considered ‘the wife of John Pearson.’ And in that era, in the early ‘70s. You know, the role of that wife was to host dinner parties, and be the hostess,” said Pearson-Lane. Pearson-Lane recounted growing up in a world of elegant dinner parties with visiting scholars and artists, that were powered both by Skuodas’ tireless work as well as her effervescent personality. At these glamourous get-togethers, she was often the center of attention, despite her work not enjoying the same spotlight. “It was really important when my brother and I created the Audra Skuodas Trust to manage her artwork,” Pearson-Lane said. The Audra Skuodas Trust also partnered with Abattoir, a gallery in Cleveland, to get her work out to a wider audience. “It is Abattoir’s role to represent the estate in all doings: museum shows, acquisitions, press, work in other galleries,” said Lisa Kurzner, founder of Abattoir.  While Kurzner was aware of Skuodas’ work, her eyes were opened when she saw it exhibited in the 2022 Front Triennial. That edition of the now-canceled public art show allowed people a glimpse into her private studio. Since then, Kurzner has joined forces with Cadence Pearson-Lane and Jason Pearson. Abattoir is currently exhibiting her work in “On Intimacy,” which runs until April 14. The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College has a collection of Skuodas’ pieces, and the director, Andria Derstine recalled her as a friend. “I got to know her shortly after I arrived at Oberlin College in 2006. She was a really warm, giving, hospitable person. Very much a deep thinker, very empathetic– a wonderful conversationalist,” Derstine said.  The museum’s holdings of Skuodas’ work include paintings, drawings and mixed-media pieces that include sewing on paper with drawings. Some of the pieces are in the permanent collection, but some are part of the museum's rental program, which allows students and community members bring pieces of art into their homes. “I think that's something that Audra would have really appreciated. The fact that people from our community who she knew so well could live with her works of art,” said Derstine. Skuodas also has a large painting from her more abstract period hanging in the Cleveland Museum of Art. “‘Merging Emerging’ is from 2010, and it's from the later part of her career when she turned to abstraction. And it's a great example of some of the themes and motifs she was interested in at that time,” said Liebert . “You can see this kind of dense formal geometric abstraction and a robust and really bright palette that's very arresting in the rooms that it occupies.” Pearson-Lane moved back to Oberlin in part to undertake the work of spreading her mother’s work and message. In her mother’s vast studio, she said she still discovers new works and new eras in Skuodas’ career. Walking through Skuodas’ studio, there are paintings, photographs, collages and drawings- some mixed with sewing and paint. Long tables and viewing cases line the main area, showing off an evolving style over the decades. Cadence Pearson-Lane reflected on her mother’s work in a recent studio tour, and she got emotional, flipping through the pages of her mother’s autobiography. “Her work was about the message… which is about the rhythm and harmony within the universe. How do we find that harmony in music? How do we find that?” Pearson-Lane said. “I feel like when people spend time with her work, they see it... they don't need explanation. It moves them. Art shouldn't need someone to explain it.” In Audra Skuodas’s 2000 painting Grasping Infinity hovers in a white oval against a crimson expanse The focal point is a small dark dot that floats between thumb and forefinger—infinity handled as an atom-like entity or a black hole a prolific artist who spent most of her life in Oberlin was drawn to the mysteries of the universe beyond the visible In drawings and paintings that use sensuous colours from deep reds and yellows to dusty pastels she envisioned micro- and macrocosms of unseen phenomena that wove together spirituality and science While at times figurative—hands are a recurring motif—her works often veer toward abstraction spirals and linear patterns into gently hypnotic compositions They share a desire to understand the oneness of the cosmos and how energies within and beyond one’s self are intertwined “Her work was a constant quest for a deeper truth,” Cadence Pearson Lane “What is this thing beneath everything else and each subsequent period got her closer and closer to that truth.” Undated photo of Audra Skuodas in her studio © Audra Skuodas Trust 2022 where her studio remains preserved and managed by her children They provide a glimpse of the breadth of her subjects and fascinations and make it clear that this is an artist who was overlooked by many in the art world “Our response was, ‘Why don’t more people know about this work?’ It is so singular and exceptional and deserves more attention and study,” curator Murtaza Vali, who selected several Skuodas paintings for a show at the Akron Art Museum but also this kind of New Age spirituality that came through with these pulsating grids or fields and as a child spent six years living in a displaced persons camp in Germany she and her family immigrated to the United States Pearson Lane recalls her mother describing herself as “a displaced amnesiac alien” who never felt like she belonged; she also suffered lingering emotional pain from a car accident in her teenage years that resulted in memory loss “She felt like she had undergone a lot of trauma but she doesn’t remember her trauma,” Pearson Lane says Skuodas herself has described her art-making as a form of tough soul-searching. “Basically I really don’t know what I’m dealing with,” she said in a 1984 interview with the journal Lituanus It’s like each painting is trying to reach toward some sort of evocation or communication or explication and it’s probably a lot of things that trouble me.” Skuodas began studying art at Northern Illinois University who soon received a job teaching at the University of New Mexico the couple made a home in an unsightly apartment redecorating it with flea-market finds that Skuodas painted with wild colours and otherworldly figures “Everything she touched she had to transform and always transformed with flamboyance,” Pearson Lane says She would get inspired by the most random things.” Skuodas always experimented with various materials such as beads But she was known most for her paintings and drawings which in her early years leaned into Surrealism These were strange landscapes with metaphysical dimensions—“rooms that open onto sea and sky” as the painter Douglas Max Utter describes in an essay in Skuodas’s 2013 catalogue or “the interior of a tent in a desert landscape where bold shadows lap at the edges of inscrutable scenarios” after stints at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Cleveland Institute of Art Pearson accepted a teaching job at Oberlin busy raising two children in the small college town mostly from galleries around Ohio but also in Illinois and New York and she chose not to go with that,” Pearson Lane says with his work appearing in international solo shows “She was seen as his wife even though she was an artist in her own right,” Pearson Lane says Untitled from the Sensitive Pulsations series (2000) © Audra Skuodas Trust 2022 “the violation of universal soul or the brutalization of Mother Earth” Although prominent critics from New York visited Skuodas’s studio “They’d say that this work is the best work they’d seen in decades but her work couldn’t sell in New York because x z was what was selling at that time,” Pearson Lane says.Skuodas’s work may not have sold in part due to the overt and reverent references to religion in some paintings from crucifixes to cryptic portraits of Jesus she was not committed to organised religion she was drawn to the messages of Biblical stories and the symbolism behind religious imagery “She was someone with a total belief in a higher power,” Pearson Lane says but she also believed in the teachings of Buddha of Madame Blavatsky and all these spiritual seekers One of Skuodas’s favourite shapes was the oval these are clear depictions of Christian stigmatas; in others the mandorla-like form alludes to female anatomy “She used it in different ways—as a unit within a grid presumably to feminist imagery.” In The Seed the Synthesis Growth the Analysis (2010) an extraordinary 5ft by 6ft painting of an apple’s cross section over cadmium yellow Waving lines delineate the surrounding layers of flesh so the core seems to open perhaps offering something forbidden in the fruit The Seed the Synthesis Growth the Analysis Skuodas made some of her best work in her later years she became increasingly focused on how pattern and colour can harmonise to evoke tension and energy and produced gridlike compositions and planes of dots arrayed in intricate designs interview19 December 2017Why the process of painting never endsThe US artist Brice Marden takes a new tack in his latest works feature21 July 2022Cleveland’s Front International triennial explores healing through art-makingThe second edition of the exhibition brings together the work of 100 artists across Ohio news12 February 2024Cleveland's Front triennial cancels 2025 edition and shuts downThe recurring exhibition which sought to make Northeast Ohio an arts destination is ceasing operations after two iterations Patricia Jo Skuodas, 72, of Sioux City, IA, passed away August 1, 2023.  Mass of Christian burial will be at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, August 7th at St. Michael’s Catholic Church.  Visitation will be Sunday from 4-6:00 p.m. with a prayer service at 6:00 p.m. at Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapel.  Burial will be at Calvary Cemetery.  Online condolences may be made to www.meyerbroschapels.com Aurabelle (Kimm) Rogers.  She graduated from Heelan High School in 1969 and was united in marriage to Victor Skuodas on February 16 1974.  Patty was a lifetime resident of Sioux City.  She worked as a unit secretary for Iowa Public Service Co for 5 years.  She was a member of Holy Cross Parish Boniface Parish and Sacred Heart Parish.  Patty was a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan and enjoyed fishing and camping.  She was a cancer survivor of 40 years and a devoted wife and homemaker who loved spending time with her grandchildren Those left to honor her memory include her husband She is preceded in death by her parents and brother-in-law memorials may be made to the family for a donation in Patty’s name View upcoming auction estimates and receive personalized email alerts for the artists you follow Cristin Tierney Gallery is presenting Vibrational Vulnerability a solo exhibition of rarely seen paintings and drawings from the estate of Audra Skuodas (1940-2019) Marian Goodman opened her new space in Tribeca—a thoughtfully renovated building at 385 Broadway.  Bringing together more than 170 galleries from 36 countries Expo Chicago hosted its VIP preview on Thursday morning Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Share on FacebookShare on X (formerly Twitter)Share on PinterestShare on LinkedInHINTON, Iowa (KTIV) - As several parents are suing the Hinton Community School District for alleged hazing involving the wrestling team five former and current staff members have hearings set for the state’s board of education examiners The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners’ website shows Casey Crawford Bradley Skuodas and Ken Slater all have notes on their education licenses saying the board has found probable cause that they violated the state’s Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics The board of examiners establishes and enforces standards for Iowa educators Hearings have been set for the complaints against these five This means their cases will be reviewed by an administrative law judge who will then draft a proposed decision Dates for the hearings have not been scheduled as of Tuesday According to the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners these are the code violations they are accused of After the judge conducts the hearings set for these five they will send a proposed decision to the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners who will issue a final decision on the complaints which ranges from their education licenses being suspended to receiving a letter of reprimand claiming students on the team were abused and assaulted by other teammates during two separate wrestling trips The trial dates for those lawsuits are scheduled for 2025 and 2026 All five of the people listed above are named as defendants in the lawsuits are facing serious allegations steming from multiple alleged hazing incidents HCSD is being sued by three sets of parents who had students that were abused and assaulted by fellow teammates during two separate wrestling trips Trial dates for the lawsuits that involve former Hinton head wrestling coach Casey Crawford,former Hinton athletic director Brian DeJong former Hinton high school principal PhillippeGoetstouwers assistant wrestling coach Bradley Skuodas and Hinton superintendent KenSlater are scheduled to begin in 2025 and 2026 Crawford and DeJong resigned when the allegations came to light DANA BECKERDana Becker has been a sports writer in Iowa since 2000 Dana resides in northcentral Iowa and started as a writer with SB Live Sports in 2022 focused on the state of Iowa Along with providing coverage of football and wrestling He began writing for High School on SI in 2023 © 2025 ABG-SI LLC - SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit If you or someone you know has a gambling problem crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER Students are today taking their education into their own hands and launching a climate emergency education bill in parliament to call for rapid education reform and with the hopes of gaining support from MPs Their calls contrast starkly with similar bills introduced by Conservative MP Christopher Chope who was one of only five MPs to vote against the UK’s Climate Change Act The students’ bill is being launched by Teach The Future, which has been set up as a collaboration between the UK School Climate Network that organised the Fridays For Future school strikes which is an offshoot of the National Union of Students Teach The Future has a six-point list of actions they want to see implemented including an English Climate Emergency Education Act and the inclusion of the climate emergency and ecological crisis in teacher training and a new professional teaching qualification Like what you’re reading? Support DeSmog by becoming a patron today! currently studying for her GCSEs in Hampshire is part of a core group of about 20 students responsible for presenting the climate emergency education bill to a parliamentary reception of MPs with the final draft written by a professional parliamentary draftsperson it is the first bill written by students about their own education.”  she told DeSmog that the campaign had received a lot of cross-party support and 60 MPs had responded saying that they would attend the launch this evening “We wanted to hold this parliamentary reception and we very quickly realised it’s going to cost quite a lot of money. We launched a crowdfunder and we’ve had 565 supporters and managed to raise £11,746 over something like a month which was amazing I never thought we would raise that amount of money so quickly We raised the first £4,000 in 48 hours.”   “We’re hoping it’ll be a really nice evening where we can start talking to MPs and start having those conversations about how we take this forward and try to gain government support so they put it through as their own bill.”  In contrast to the students campaigning to reform their own education Conservative MP Christopher Chope tabled two private members’ bills in parliament on February 10 that he says “look to address eco-anxiety and define it.” Chope’s bills are called The Anxiety in Schools (Environmental Concerns) Bill and Anxiety (Environmental Concerns) Bill He told PA news agency: “This is a new subject for Parliament and I thought these private members’ bills are an opportunity to ventilate it and get a response because this eco-anxiety is affecting some people in a very serious way it is causing some people to say they do not want to have children.” “This is quite a drastic response to an issue that they as individuals have no control over But rather than toning down climate education in the classroom Skuodas argues there needs to be a much clearer focus on the crisis facing her generation Read more coverage of the School Strikes for Climate She believes the current education system isn’t fit for purpose saying,“it isn’t preparing us with the skills we need to enter a world that is completely different because of the climate crisis.”  Skuodas emphasises that it’s not enough to teach children about climate change in just geography or science classes but “about implementing the climate crisis into education and into the curriculum but it’s also about the way schools are run and the sustainable principles that need to run through all of our topics,” she said then no matter what GCSE or A Level options you choose you’d have a good understanding of the climate crisis of sustainable principles and of the action that needs to be taken to address the climate crisis.”  “So we need a government-commissioned review into how our education system is or isn’t preparing us for that and take pragmatic action to address those things alongside freeing up funds for student-led environmental action so that finance isn’t a barrier to students wanting to take climate action.”  Despite being fully aware of how long that process could take Skuodas tells DeSmog that she is optimistic about the launch She said: “The ideal scenario would be that the government would adopt our Climate Education Act and it would get passed through pretty rapidly.” Every student that is currently going through education is going through an education system that is unfit for purpose If it went through as rapidly as possible that would be brilliant so that new students coming through would be going through an education system that prepared them.” Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts A Zen Buddhist priest's guide to supporting yourself and your community in these testing times Policymakers and industry say the Midwest Hydrogen Hub will create green jobs and slash emissions but environmentalists see a ploy to keep fossil fuels in use Newsletter Website by SeriousOtters Subscribe Donate What’s the longest you’ve ever waited for a sequel? Croydon duo Krept & Konan have kept fans waiting 12 years for the follow-up to their debut album, Young Kingz. In the intervening decade they’ve gone from rising stars to rap game royalty while continuing to make hits rap and dancehall for that signature UK sound Singles Low Vibrations and New Snap City showcase the pair’s breezy beats and cheeky bars both artists take a moment for introspection Nala’s Song is Krept’s message to his three-year-old daughter a beautiful and cathartic address to Konan’s late father These slow-burners are some of the album’s best tracks and infuse the latter half with a fresh energy Highlights here include Smooth Lovin’ featuring dancehall legend Popcaan the sombre bars of Street Therapy that reflect on darker times and the thumping beats of Rage with grime veteran Ghetts full of personal touches and boasting accomplished features A work in the Audra Skuodas retrospective at the Cleveland Artists Foundation at the Beck Center in Lakewood The most characteristic works in the show are large posterlike and elegantly realized paintings of slender Their often-attenuated bodies are compressed or partially extended in jagged dancelike postures of sorrow or suffering that make them seem to be imprisoned within the rectangular forms of the canvases and especially in a series called “Vibrational Vulnerabilities” that started in the mid-’90s feel both like a searing act of self-disclosure on the part of the artist and a spur to self-interrogation on the part of the viewer slender women cry tears of blood or thorns or stretch Christ-like across fields of chalky color on which evenly spaced drops of blood rain down In these restrained and poised evocations of psychological and physical pain Skuodas raises questions about whether one can simply be a neutral witness to suffering or whether one is somehow complicit in the societal forces that assault her suffering women It is tempting to read biographical meanings into the artist’s work given her childhood; she was born in Lithuania in 1940 and lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany for six years before coming to the United States in 1949 Skuodas earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Northern Illinois University and has taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the Cleveland Institute of Art and Oberlin College. She is married to John Pearson a longtime professor of studio art at the college Skuodas has discouraged narrative interpretations of her exhibition even though many of her works have an illustrational quality that implies the existence of an underlying narrative She organized the Beck show without wall labels that would indicate the title Curious viewers may consult typewritten sheets available in the gallery that give the dates for the 27 canvases in the show; otherwise the information given is strictly bare-bones The effect of the more recent paintings is both compelling and disturbing Skuodas has created an art that wraps sexual and religious anxiety in a beguiling visual package sweet cake that turns bitter on the tongue Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, (updated 8/1/2024) and acknowledgement of our Privacy Policy, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (updated 1/1/2025) © 2025 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us) The material on this site may not be reproduced except with the prior written permission of Advance Local Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site YouTube's privacy policy is available here and YouTube's terms of service is available here Ad Choices member of the Cleveland Nonviolent Network and Pax Christi-Cleveland: "Philip Metres educator and an activist intimately involved in the global struggle for human rights We are very fortunate to have him here in Northeast Ohio I first met Philip at our 2006 Labor Day Peace Show a family-friendly alternative to the largely militaristic Cleveland National Air Show Philip and a few of his English students from John Carroll University were randomly interviewing organizers and attendees as to how they became interested in working for peace through nonviolence The recorded answers were then placed on the JCU website as the "War and Peace Story Project." University of Akron/NEOMFA (Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts) the University of Akron: "David Giffels is one of the most significant writers working today in the relatively new discipline of creative nonfiction He made the difficult transition from journalism to creative writing with great success: His recent book 'All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House,' has received widespread national critical acclaim." Title: Associate professor of music at Berklee College of Music in Boston visiting associate professor of percussion at Oberlin College and teacher of world rhythms at Cleveland Institute of Music Comments from Arts Prize jury member Thomas M Cleveland Museum of Art: "Master percussionist major musical figure and Cleveland native Jamey Haddad [is] a consummate artist [who] has appeared on over 150 recordings traversing the musical landscape from jazz (Dave Liebman Nancy Wilson) to popular music (Paul Simon Judy Collins) to world music (Simon Shaheen Glen Velez) to a number of his own unclassifiable works a crucial mentor for the next generation of master musicians." principal of Robert Maschke Architects Inc. based in Cleveland: "Artist Audra Skuodas' paintings and drawings Skuodas' work seeks to harness the sensorial tactility of sound embodied in vibration and reinterpret it via the visual languages she deploys." Telos Productions: "Adams has written over 200 books and catalogs including major works on the artists Andrew Wyeth He is published by some of the world's leading publishers Abbeville Press and Oxford University Press 'Eakins Revealed,' by Henry Adams is the most extraordinary biography I have ever read on an artist.' " for leaders who are dedicated to a democratic vision of the arts Title: Art and architecture critic for The Plain Dealer Nominated by novelist Mary Doria Russell: "Architecture No matter what aspect of the arts Steve profiles His thoughtful analyses are always humane: criticism that does not wound the creator PD readers are Steve's students every week and he makes our education feel effortless." Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts to honor an individual or organization whose vision or philanthropy has made a significant contribution to the arts in Northeast Ohio Title: Consultant to Cleveland Foundation for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and chairwoman of the Cleveland Arts Prize 1990-2000 Cleveland Foundation: "Over the last three decades Mary Louise Hahn built and sustained two of Cleveland's most prestigious art and literary traditions: the Cleveland Arts Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Her love of the arts and her passion for the community have enriched Greater Cleveland in ways that will long endure." Title: Co-founder and trustee of the Art Therapy Studio (arttherapystudio.org) which provided therapeutic art services and programs to more than 1,600 children and adults in 2009 at numerous Cleveland-area agencies and institutions Coordinator of Activity Therapy and clinical director of Art Therapy Studio program at MetroHealth Medical Center from 1967 to retirement in 2000 Currently a consultant on art-therapy education and program development and part-time faculty member for Ursuline College's Graduate Art Therapy and Counseling Program Nominated by designer and former Cleveland Arts Prize winner Mort Epstein: "Mickie McGraw a former student of mine at the Cleveland Institute of Art brought art as a healing agent to thousands of patients suffering from otherwise devastating and traumatic illnesses her techniques have had a strong impact both here in the Cleveland area and nationally I have been in touch with Mickie over the years as a friend and as board president of the Metro Art Studio Board Her widely acclaimed efforts deserve the recognition she has received with the awarding of a Cleveland Arts Prize." Bostwick Design Partnership: "Joanne has a sophisticated understanding of contemporary art and a gift for communicating the importance of art in a healing environment Cleveland Clinic's Art Program is assembling a remarkably extensive collection of museum-quality contemporary art it is integrated throughout the entire medical center the art program certainly connects art to the daily lives of more people than traditional museum venues It is by far the largest and most innovative program in the region and likely the largest of any medical center in the country." Nominated by retired art teacher Mary Beth Karakul: "Trudy and I have known each other for 35 years when we both taught at the Cleveland Museum of Art She approached University Hospitals 20 years ago about the importance of art within the hospital and to the healing process Trudy has successfully tackled the challenge of assembling a hospital collection -- choosing high-quality artwork in diverse mediums that reach many people Trudy has built an incredible collection that patients visitors and employees can interact with in a positive nurturing manner which creates an atmosphere of healing." Comments from Arts Prize jury member Fran Belkin: "Cleveland has two outstanding hospitals the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals and both of them have shown an unusual commitment to the arts Toby Cosgrove has made exceptional works of art a priority in his new buildings." Comments from Belkin: "University Hospitals has a long history of displaying outstanding art They are gearing up for an exciting collection in the new [UH Ahuja Medical Center.] [Zenty and Cosgrove] have made a bold statement about the healing power of art they are enhancing the experience at these hospitals." Title: The district will be represented by Matt Zone Zone is accepting the award on behalf of the other winners affiliated with Gordon Square: Joy Roller executive director of the Gordon Square Arts District; Jeff Ramsey executive director of Detroit Shoreway Community Organization; Judge Ray Pianka former director of Cleveland Public Theatre and Ingenuityfest artistic director; Stephanie Morrison-Hrbek Near West Theatre executive director; Raymond Bobgan Cleveland Public Theatre executive artistic director; Albert Ratner Forest City Enterprises co-chairman; Richard Pogue Jones Day senior adviser; Tom Sullivan Sr. RPM International chairman emeritus; Larry Schultz Halter and Griswold LLP; Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson senior vice president for programs at Neighborhood Progress: "Councilman Matt Zone and Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization together brought the vision of the Gordon Square Arts District to life This $30 million investment is writing a new future for the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood and making the arts accessible to everyone What a powerful partnership and amazing transformation."