About the Distinguished Artist Awards
The Distinguished Artist Award was established in 2018 through partnership with Mayor Steve Nobel and the Kingston Arts Commission. The Distinguished Artist Award seeks to reward the achievements of local artists and creative thinkers. Nominees for the Distinguished Artist Awards must have been a resident of Kingston for a minimum of two years. Nominees will have demonstrated a commitment to the local creative community. Awardees are selected by a panel of their peers, and are honored in a ceremony held at City Hall. The 2018 Distinguished Artist Award was awarded to local couple, Peter Wetzler and Julie Hedrick.
The panel for the 2018 Distinguished Artist Award was comprised of five Kingston residents: Bryant “Drew” Andrews, Executive Director, Center for Creative Education; Ione, author, playwright/director and poet; Brian Mahoney, Editor, Chronogram Magazine; Isabel Nazario, Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, Rutgers University; and Aaron Rezney, food and still life photographer.
The Kingston Arts Commission is currently accepting nominations for the 2020 Distinguished Artist Awards. Please click here to nominate an artist.
About the Artists
Filmmaker & Author Nick Hand's short film about the 2018 Distinguished Artists, Julie Hedrick and Peter Wetzler. Hedrick & Wetzler are also featured in Hand's book Conversations on the Hudson.
Julie Hedrick has
exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Colombia, and
Europe. She is a graduate of the Painting Studio Program at Nova Scotia College
of Art and Design (NSCAD). Born in 1958 in Toronto, Hedrick is now based in
Kingston, New York. She is also a poet and has participated to great acclaim in
readings, performances, set designs and discussion panels. Hedrick was awarded
the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2012 and was recently honored with the
Kingston Distinguished Artist Award alongside her composer husband. Hedrick has
been represented by Nohra Haime Gallery since 1998.
Julie Hedrick’s new body of work titled ‘Persephone Rising’ is
an oasis in these troubled times. Hedrick responds with her current palette of
pink and peach hues, the sacred colors of rebirth. Functioning as a
personification of feminine energy, power, and creativity, these works explore
and honor Great Mother Earth. The differing qualities of light and color
glowing within these paintings represent femininity as multidimensional and
everlasting. The paintings move from serenely soft and dreamy, to abundantly
joyous. Some are etched with gold, some flushed with breaths of yellow, while
others deepen into cherry with patches of bright white light.
Varying in scale, rhythm, and character, this series basks us in
a renewal of pink, awakening us. The formation of these paintings into diptychs
and triptychs are representative of reconciliation, a reminder of the energies
that exist within and between us. The light filled canvases reflect the nuances
of identity and leave us feeling open to hope. The lion’s roar of pink called
Hedrick and this new series is the result.
Upcoming
exhibition ‘ Hedrick & Hedrick ‘ An exhibition of paintings by Julie and
her father Robert Hedrick at One Mile Gallery Saturday, November 3rd 2019
6-8pm.
To view Hedrick's decades long explorations of color in painting and poetry, please visit the links below.
Julie Hedrick's Webpage //Julie Hedrick @ Nohra Haime Gallery
Peter Wetzler is classically trained in
piano and was guest soloist with symphonies at an early age. He studied piano
and conducting at the Mozarteum Conservatory in Salzburg, Austria and continued
piano with Robert Helps and composition at Princeton University.From Princeton Peter migrated to New York City and moved
into jazz and non-Western music playing in gamelan and avant-garde
ensembles while writing music for celebrated modern dance choreographers such
as Bill T. Jones, David Dorfman and Susan Marshall and touring Europe and North
America with Laura Dean.
The strong rhythmic drive of his music, blended with
the raw experimental influence of the downtown New York City music scene, had
made him much sought after as a composer of film and television and multi-media
scores including PBS’s “Great Performances” series, the Museum of Modern Art
Experimental Filmmakers series, ABC and CBC documentaries as well as dark
comedy and cartoon scoring.
Wetzler’s recent live events include conducting the
Hudson Valley Philharmonic in a live performance of his score to Anezka Sebek’s
film, “Landfill,” at the Hudson Valley Film Festival and the screening of
Isabel Barton’s film “Julie of the Spirits” at the Woodstock Film Festival and
performing with his ensemble The Repeatos @ Kingston’s O Positive Festival, The Rosendale Rail Trail Cafe and with Future Bossa 350 and the singer Eleni Reyes
at the Artbar and Midtown Arts District (MAD) Kingston’s Festival of the Arts.
After 20 years of exploring and composing on the bleeding
edge of electronic music in 2010 Peter returned to the solo acoustic
piano and released the CD “Falling Awake” followed by “Green” in 2011. These
explorations are a culmination of his years as a theater and film composer
combined with his classical, jazz and world music influences. Wetzler recently
curated the 4th Annual Celebration for the Arts, and continues
to discover ways to bring music to the local community including his upcoming
podcast “Conversations with Composers” where he interviewed and featured the
music of local masters for WGXC radio which he will be continuing at Radio Kingston WKNY.
To learn more about Wetzler's creative achievements, please visit the links below.
Peter Wetzler's Webpage // Peter Wetzler on Radio Kingston's Speak Out