The Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, now in its 30th year, still hasn’t run out of candidates to recognize at its annual awards luncheon.
About 750 people attended the group’s signature event Wednesday afternoon at the Seawell Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Boulder Digital Arts received the group’s Create Award, recognizing an outstanding for-profit creative business. The Boulder company hosts 300 events a year, mostly classes and workshops, at its 6,000-square-foot space dedicated to digital media.
Other candidates for the award included the Kadoya Gallery in Pueblo and NINE dot ARTS, a Denver-based arts consulting firm.
The General Services Administration won the group’s Impact Award for the use of art in a work or business setting. The GSA, which oversees federal properties, was recognized for providing art in public spaces, an art loan program and its federal employees art show.
Other candidates for that award included the Community College of Denver and Sage Hospitality, which places works of local artists in its hotels.
Bill Marino received the John Madden Jr. Leadership Award for his work in developing the Lakewood-West Colfax creative corridor. Other candidates included Dana Crawford for her four-decade effort to preserve Denver’s historic buildings and Craig Ponzio for his innovative art therapy program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Janus Capital Group won the Philanthropy Award for its student art buying program, as well as its long-running sponsorship of the Cherry Creek Arts Festival and other cultural events.
Other candidates for that award included Bellco Credit Union and DaVita HealthCare Partners.
Gov. John Hickenlooper was awarded the 2015 National Award for State Arts Leadership from Americans for the Arts and the United States Conference of Mayors at the luncheon.
Although it wasn’t a CBCA award, Hickenlooper didn’t attend the Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting, so Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, flew out to present it to him.
“The dude can play,” Lynch said of the governor, recounting a compliment once paid him by another musician, before detailing areas where the state is leading the nation.
That includes the placement of the Colorado Creative Industries program under the state office of economic development.
