Arts Awards

Arts in Education Award Nominees

The Arts in Education Award celebrates an individual, collective or organization that has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to engaging St. Catharines' residents through arts education activities.

Jana Simms-Bergsma

Jana Simms-Bergsma returned home to St. Catharines in 2008 with an art degree, and the determination to put it into action in her hometown. Jana painted scenery and backdrops for the Shaw Festival, and began dreaming up ways to teach art to others and utilized her summers to pursue teaching art.

Jana began her career as an artist educator in 2011, facilitating summer camps at Rodman Hall Arts Centre. She subsequently began teaching adult programs at Rodman Hall, including watercolour, acrylic, landscape painting, mixed media, and sculpture, and especially enjoyed classes for high school teachers and sharing scenic art tips and tricks. Jana has also instructed at with the Willow Arts Community and scenic art in the Department of Dramatic Arts at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts. She has led free programming free art for In the Soil, Culture Days, Celebration of Nations, Carousel Players, Kristen French Child Advocacy Centre, Parkway Artist Guild and Big Brothers Big Sisters St.

Jana is passionate about engaging participants while following process-based practices nurturing curiosity and creative problem solving in the art making process.

Dr. Rachel Rensink-Hoff

Dr. Rachel Rensink-Hoff is Associate Professor of Music at the Brock University Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, Conductor of the Brock University Choir and Sora Singers, and Artistic Director of the Avanti Chamber Singers. She is founder of the Niagara Choral Workshop summer program for choral teachers and conductors and host of an online guest choral series, Shared Perspectives. Prior to her appointment at Brock University, she spent eight years on faculty at McMaster University.

Past Vice-President of Programming for Choral Canada and Past-President of Choirs Ontario, Rachel maintains an active career as adjudicator, workshop clinician, and juror both locally and across Canada. She has served as guest conductor of the 2017 Nova Scotia Youth Choir and the 2022 Alberta Youth Choir. Her ongoing work focuses on conductor training and mentorship, singing and wellbeing, and the conductor’s creative processes in rehearsal and programming.

Willow Arts Community

Willow Arts Community began in 2015 as a grassroots movement in St. Catharines, spearheaded by Shauna MacLeod. The founding group consisted of artists, educators, creatives, and community workers, all with lived and living experience of mental illness/substance use disorder (MI/SUD). They identified there was a gap in services and a need for a peer support network where individuals living with MI/SUD could participate in their own recovery through the arts, while finding meaning and connection outside of a clinical setting.

Since 2016, Willow Arts Community has supported over 450 artists and creatives living with MI/SUD in Niagara, with over 9000 hours of free, multidisciplinary arts training programs, various community art projects, and has hired 30 local artists and arts professionals. To date, they have hosted 20 seasonal showcases and exhibitions presenting original works created during their programs to a community audience.

Emerging Artist Award Nominees

The Emerging Artist Award celebrates current accomplishments alongside future potential and is presented to an emerging St. Catharines artist working in any discipline. Emerging artists are establishing careers in their field and are working to become recognized professional artists.

Lillie Kazancioglu

Lillie Kazancioglu is a visual artist and poet. Born in St. Catharines, her passion for art sprouted at a young age.

Lillie has completed a manuscript of her first poetry novel called Who She Was. Parts of the book touch on complex mental health matters that she experienced from childhood into adulthood. Lillie found comfort and safety in painting imaginary worlds that created beautiful realities in her mind and in forming sequences of lyrical phrases, expressing emotions that she could not speak about out loud. Since embracing her creativity, she has shared poems and her artistic processes through social media (@cinnamonminded).

Jill Lunn

Jill Lunn is a multidisciplinary artist who expresses herself through photography, acrylic painting, mixed media, and sculpture. Jill described her work as medicine, which heals her from the trauma of her childhood, and balances her soul.

Jill has worked extensively in St. Catharines and the Niagara region. She has collaborated on many artist projects, including co-curating the Celebration of Nation Music Showcase series that premiered at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in April 2022. The series, with additional dates in 2022 and 2023, brings together emerging and established Indigenous musicians in an impactful singer-songwriter circle.

Jill’s favourite activity as an artist is teaching, and she has conducted workshops for thousands of students and community members, sharing unique and personal perspectives of caring for Turtle Island: “If my children or maybe my future grandchildren will love art, express themselves and have learned to decompress life experiences with their arts, I feel I will be closer to reconciling my past, by impacting the future.” 

Jonathan Moore

Jonathan Moore developed an interest in music at a very young age, inspired by his grandfather’s music career. Jonathan is a self-taught pianist, producer, singer-songwriter, and took courses through the Metalworks Institute. He has performed in St. Catharines, Hamilton, and Mississauga, showcasing original music. Jonathan supported hip hop artist Kevin Williamson, AKA “Ktriggs” with events through Freedom of Speech Entertainment, has performed with Kid Lifted, and produced and performed with King Fufu.

Kathryn Sinopoli

Kathryn Sinopoli is a songwriter and singer, born and raised St. Catharines where she found opportunities to grow her love of music, through her church, the Niagara Conservatory of Music, and singing in her school choirs. Kathryn has written over 150 songs since 2017, on her own and collaborating with other people in the Niagara region.

In 2019, her song Sandcastle Queen was a semi-finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. In November of 2020, she released Home for Christmas, which was the third most active indie in Canada the week of its release and which made the Billboard Canada AC Chart, and stayed there for five weeks in a row. In August of 2021, Kathryn released her first EP, Bone Collector, which had its self-titled single featured on Canadian radio. Kathryn has been noted as “one to watch” by the Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Established Artist Award Nominees

The Established Artist Award is presented to a professional St. Catharines artist in any discipline who has received critical recognition for their art in St. Catharines and beyond.

Monica Dufault

Monica Dufault is the Artistic Director of Carousel Players. She has been based in the Niagara Region for over 30 years and has lived and worked in St. Catharines since 2007.

Monica has performed with the Shaw Festival, the National Arts Centre, Theatre Aquarius, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, and other companies across Canada. She has acted in many plays for young audiences, with Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Prairie Theatre Exchange, and Carousel Players. She was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award in the category Best Actress in Theatre for Young Audiences for her performance in Carousel’s production of Where the Wild Things Are. As a playwright, Monica wrote Peg and the Yeti, which has been produced by Carousel Players, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Manitoba Theatre for Young People and New West Theatre.

She has worked with almost every arts organization in St. Catharines including, Essential Collective Theatre (Artistic Director from 2014 to 2018) Chorus Niagara, Niagara Symphony Orchestra, the Niagara Artists Centre, In the Soil Festival, and Suitcase in Point.

Amy Friend

Amy Friend is a Canadian artist working with various methodologies through photography, installation, and community-based collaborations. Amy’s research and process driven work has been included in national and international exhibitions, projects and festivals including, Gexto Photofestival (Spain), Paris Photo with incamera galerie (France), Onassis Cultural Center (Greece), ASPA (Sardinia), DongGang Photography Museum (South Korea), GuatePhoto (Guatemala), Mosteiro de Tibães at the Encontros Da Imagem (Portugal), Rodman Hall (Ontario, Canada), Photoville (New York, USA), Onassis Cultural Center (Greece), and at the Abbaye De Silvacane, La Roque D'Antheron (France).

Her work has been featured in select publications such as, Keeper of the Hearth (Amsterdam), California Sunday Magazine (USA), GUP Magazine (Amsterdam), LUX (Poland), EyeMazing (Thames and Hudson), Dishun Magazine (Thailand), and The Walrus (Canada). Friend published the monograph, Stardust with L' Artiere Publishing, Italy in 2017. In 2019 her work was selected for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Competition and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London (UK). In 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2019 her work was selected as one of the top 50 photographs in the juried Critical Mass International Photography Competition.

Amy has upcoming exhibitions at Bildhalle (Switzerland), Charta Festival (Rome), and at the Orestiadi Foundation (Sicily).

She is Associate Professor and Chair of Visual Arts at Brock University.

Sarah Jerrom

Sarah Jerrom is a Canadian vocalist, composer and arranger specializing in jazz and creative music, taking her inspiration from lyric-driven melodies, genre-defying instrumentation, and experimental soundscapes. Sarah’s latest album, a collection of original songs recorded by her contemporary jazz quartet, Dream Logic, was released in 2021 on Three Pines Records. The Yeats Project (2017), her first all-original album, features W.B. Yeats’s poetry set to music and orchestrated for a nine-piece chamber jazz ensemble, achieved critical praise and international airplay. Sarah’s debut album, Illuminations (2007), encompassing original compositions, jazz-inspired arrangements of contemporary songs and traditional jazz standards, has also received widespread media attention and international radio airplay.

Sarah has performed across Ontario including, the Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Niagara Jazz Festival, Lakefield Jazz Festival, and Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival. Sarah has performed with renowned jazz artists such as Mike Murley, Kevin Turcotte, Ingrid Jensen, Carnatic-fusion guitarist Prasanna and has sung with Alex Samaras’ vocal group, GREX.

Sarah is a passionate music educator and private instructor, maintaining a private studio of voice, piano, composition, arranging, and theory students.

Joe Lavoie

Joe Lavoie has been strumming a guitar and singing since high school. He grew up in St. Catharines listening to country music, and has been inspired by Eric Clapton, INXS, Blue Rodeo, the Barenaked Ladies, and the Tragically Hip. Joe has performed in countless venues in St. Catharines and the Niagara region, and during the pandemic he livestreamed shows on various platforms with the aim of helping others feel less isolated. Joe uses his music to share stories and connect with others through music and live performance.

Mori McCrae

Mori McCrae is the author of Shelf Life (Grey Borders, 2017), Passersby (Grey Borders, 2018), and her collection of poetry, Sex & Death in Canada: Land of No Middle Ground (Grey Borders, 2019). Her most recent collection of poems, Love and Lunch (Aeolus House) was published in 2022.

Mori has lived and worked in the Niagara region for the past 26 years. She is a founding member of the Jordan Art Gallery where she currently exhibits her work and actively promotes artists from Niagara. She is the facilitator of “Studio 201 – Drawn from Life,” which supports the study of figurative drawing and painting. Mori has received several project grants from the Ontario Arts Council and has participated in artist residencies at Cill Rialaig Arts Centre (Ireland) SIM Residency (Iceland), and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland).

Mori has recently read and performed at the Art Bar, Supermarket, Welland Public Library, and the In the Soil Arts Festival.

Donna Szoke

Donna Szoke is an interdisciplinary artist. She has received numerous research awards and grants for her work, including Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and SSHRC. In 2017 she was awarded the Brock Faculty of Humanities Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity.

Donna’s practice includes video, installation, animation, drawing, writing, experimental collaboration, and printmaking. Her work exhibits in public art, interactive video installation, outdoor site-specific video installation, film festivals and galleries. Her ideas investigate immanence, encounter, failure, haptic perception, and non-visual knowledge in moving images. Her work has shown in Canada, US, France, Germany, Hungary, Croatia, Cuba, Turkey, UAE, and South Korea.

She is currently an Associate Professor of Visual Art at Brock University.

Making a Difference Award Nominees

The Making a Difference Award celebrates a St. Catharines arts entrepreneur, arts administrator, arts organization, arts animator, or volunteer in the arts whose leadership and innovation have significantly contributed to the growth and development of arts and culture in St. Catharines.

Rob Burke

Rob Burke was born and raised in St. Catharines. He started performing on stage at very young age and wanted to create art programs for children. As a result, he created a free drama program in St. Catharines in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters, Dina Mavridis, and Stacie Primeau. The program ran for two seasons, providing low-barrier access to arts education programming.

Rob has produced numerous theatre productions in Niagara with the aim to provide artist opportunities and to raise money for non-profit charitable organizations, including Make-A- Wish® Foundation Canada and Project SHARE. Most recently, Rob’s productions of JIN and Riders on The Storm: A Live Celebration of The Doors raised more than $2,000 for Willow Arts Community. Rob plans to continue creating entertainment events that will help the community but also help give artists and performers a chance to shine on stage.

Bart Gazzola

Bart Gazzola is an arts writer, curator and photographer based in Niagara. Notable recent curatorial projects include Welland: Times Present Times Past (2020) at AIH Studios in Welland, and A Place to Stand: The Legacy of the Rodman Hall Art Centre Collection (2021 – 2022). He was previously assistant editor at The Sound: Niagara’s Arts and Culture Magazine, where his ongoing series on Brock University and Rodman Hall Art Centre earned him a St. Catharines Arts Award nomination in 2020.

For the past five years Bart has facilitated the 5 x 2 Visual Conversations in St. Catharines at the Mahtay Café & Lounge, which is a group of artists who meet once a month to share artworks and ideas. He is currently the Assistant Editor with curatednow.ca, which has featured numerous Niagara-based artists. Bart is the primary researcher and writer for AIH Studios’ ongoing Artists You Need to Know series, which has highlighted several important Niagara artists, past and present.

Jill Lunn

Jill Lunn is a multidisciplinary artist who expresses herself through photography, acrylic painting, mixed media, and sculpture. Jill described her work as medicine, which heals her from the trauma of her childhood, and balances her soul.

Jill has worked extensively in St. Catharines and the Niagara region. She has collaborated on many artist projects, including co-curating the Celebration of Nation Music Showcase series that premiered at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in April 2022. The series, with additional dates in 2022 and 2023, brings together emerging and established Indigenous musicians in an impactful singer-songwriter circle.

Jill’s favourite activity as an artist is teaching, and she has conducted workshops for thousands of students and community members, sharing unique and personal perspectives of caring for Turtle Island: “If my children or maybe my future grandchildren will love art, express themselves and have learned to decompress life experiences with their arts, I feel I will be closer to reconciling my past, by impacting the future.”

Emily Oriold

Emily Oriold is The Foster Festival’s Founding Executive Director and Artistic Producer. In the summer of 2014, Emily approached Norm Foster and pitched the idea of founding a festival in his name, one that celebrates his extensive body of work. After hearing her pitch, Norm Foster accepted Emily’s proposal and The Norm Foster Theatre Festival was born.

Since its inaugural season in 2015, under Emily’s leadership, The Foster Festival has welcomed over 45,000 visitors, employed 86 actors, 95 production team members, and 28 emerging arts workers. As an actor, Emily has performed on stages across the country and has directed at the Blyth Festival, Theatre Aquarius, Talk is Free Theatre, and, most recently, directed the highly- successful Foster Festival production of Norm Foster’s, The Ladies Foursome, which toured to four different golf courses in the Niagara region. This production made Stage-door.com’s one of ten most notable performances of 2021 in Ontario. Recognized for her work at The Foster Festival, Emily has received a 40 Under Forty Niagara Business Award, the 2017 Niagara Women in Business Award for Excellence in Tourism and was a finalist for the 2021 Niagara Women in Business Cultural Arts Award.

"The Empress" Claudia Silva

“The Empress” Claudia Silva is a Niagara native and local Drag personality, entertainer, host, pageant coordinator, event planner, activist, and dedicated community influencer.

The Empress was introduced to drag performance through fundraising within The International Imperial Court System (IICS), one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ2+ organizations in the world. The Empress has performed and raised positive awareness with many Niagara organizations, such as Positive Living Niagara, Pearl Gloves Charity Boxing, Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games Pride Day, POZitivity: Slay Stigma Canadian Drag Tour and St. Catharines Public Library, among others, in addition to countless Pride Niagara and local LGBTQ2+ events.

The Empress is the cohost of Niagara’s original drag brunch, Drag it to Brunch, host and co-creator of Pride Niagara’s web series, Spilling the Tea, and co-host and co- creator of Pride Niagara’s original drag story time.

Rebecca Walsh

Rebecca Walsh has been working in non-profit arts administration and production in Niagara for decades. Since 2017 Rebecca has managed Essential Collective Theatre (ECT), a local non-profit theatre company, producing professional Canadian contemporary plays and original works. ECT’s vision is to develop and enrich Niagara’s performing arts community with the spirit of artistic collaboration.

Rebecca is currently ECT’s sole full-time employee acting as Managing Director where she’s able to fulfill her dream of supporting, retaining, and mentoring local artists. She is committed to gender parity among playwrights, performers, designers, and administrators; works by, and roles for BIPOC, youth, and LGTBQ+ artists; inclusivity in artistic leadership and programming. She has taken part in industry-specific diversity and inclusion training and is a member of the Niagara Arts Equity Coalition. Through her community outreach and development, she has facilitated subsidized tickets for migrant workers, newcomers, at-risk youth, Indigenous, Jewish, and seniors’ communities, the CMHA, and Pride Niagara.

Willow Arts Community

Willow Arts Community began in 2015 as a grassroots movement in St. Catharines, spearheaded by Shauna MacLeod. The founding group consisted of artists, educators, creatives, and community workers, all with lived and living experience of mental illness/substance use disorder (MI/SUD). They identified there was a gap in services and a need for a peer support network where individuals living with MI/SUD could participate in their own recovery through the arts, while finding meaning and connection outside of a clinical setting.

Since 2016, Willow Arts Community has supported over 450 artists and creatives living with MI/SUD in Niagara, with over 9000 hours of free, multidisciplinary arts training programs, various community art projects, and has hired 30 local artists and arts professionals. To date, they have hosted 20 seasonal showcases and exhibitions presenting original works created during their programs to a community audience.

Patron of the Arts Award

The Patron of the Arts Award celebrates an individual, business or organization that has made a meaningful contribution to the arts in St. Catharines through innovative, transformative, and entrepreneurial partnerships or philanthropic investments.

Frank Goldspink 

This year’s recipient is Frank Goldspink, Gallery Director at TAG Art Gallery for the past 16 years. Frank will be recognized at the 2022 Arts Awards, taking place on November 29, when the remainder of the recipients will be announced.

Frank Goldspink has been Gallery Director for TAG Art Gallery for 16 years. During his tenure, he was the principal contact for artists from St. Catharines, the Niagara Region, across Ontario and Quebec.

With his oversight, Frank ensured that the works of local contemporary visual artists were well represented in the gallery. He is well known in the local arts community as someone who would provide visual artists of all ages and skillsets with the opportunity to show their art in a professional setting.

Frank played a significant role in addressing the future for a public art gallery in St. Catharines, and his efforts ultimately contributed to the formation of the Rodman Art Institute of Niagara, which is continuing Rodman Hall Art Centre’s 60-year legacy.

Frank was an early advocate and supporter of the Mayor’s Art Fund. He was also instrumental in TAG Art Gallery’s decision to contribute the funds to create the Donor’s Recognition Wall at the First Ontario Performing Arts Centre. Frank’s contributions to the local arts community have been significant and consistent for nearly two decades.