Congratulations to the Arrowhead Arts Awards Winners!

The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council is excited to announce the winners of the Fiscal Year 2025 Arrowhead Arts Awards, which will be celebrated at an upcoming ceremony to be scheduled for spring 2025. This event honors the outstanding contributions to the arts within the Arrowhead region, showcasing the exceptional talent and dedication that enriches our region.

2025 Award Winners:

• George Morrison Artist Award: Karen Savage-Blue
  This award recognizes an individual artist whose body of work has made a significant contribution to the arts over an extended period of time, reflecting the legacy of George Morrison.

• Maddie Simons Arts Advocate Award: Joan Farnam
  This award recognizes an arts administrator, arts educator, volunteer for a nonprofit arts organization, or artist whose involvement in a project or program has substantially contributed to the arts in the Arrowhead Region.

• Award for Transformational Art: Giizh (Sarah) Agaton Howes
  This award recognizes the efforts of an artist to transform their community through their work.

The awardees were selected through a committee made up of community members who have had extensive experience in the reviewing/selection process. The selected awardees have each demonstrated immense creativity, leadership, and commitment to their craft. They are an inspiration to other artists, arts advocates, educators, and innovators in our region.

After a brief hiatus, the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council board and staff are thrilled to host an event in the spring highlighting the important role of the arts in our community. The exact date, location, and additional details will be announced at a later date.

For more information about the winners, the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, or upcoming events, please visit aracouncil.org or contact us at info@aracouncil.org.

More about the Awardees

Karen Savage-Blue (George Morrison Artist Award)
Karen Savage Blue, is an artist and a teacher. Karen has been an art teacher for over 30 years and has taught in the K-12 system and she’s currently teaching at the college level. “I love creating and teaching art. I remember telling my teachers in grade school that I wanted to be an artist and that has never changed,” said Karen.

Karen grew up in Duluth, Minnesota and is an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac Ojibwe tribe where she lives now.

Karen’s works with multiple mediums of art including beading, but her favorite is painting. Karen has worked with many types of paint including acrylic, egg tempera, gouache, watercolor and her ultimate favorite, oil paint. When Karen paints with oils, she enjoys the challenge of working with palette knives and testing the different effects of the knives versus her paint brushes.

The biggest challenge Karen gave herself when she began working with oil paints was when she decided to complete one oil painting a day for a whole year. Karen’s goal was to paint even when she didn’t feel like it and become a better painter because of her dedication. “It was fun but it was mostly hard, some days I did not want to paint but I did anyway. I did it because I wanted to become a really good painter, and it worked!” said Karen.

Karen said, “I guess its safe to say that a person can become good at whatever they put their mind to but also whatever you put your time, talent, heart and soul into. I look forward to doing my art, its what I have come to depend on to bring me joy and contentment. Its nice to know that I can reach that with the touch of a brush or palette knife.”

Joan Farnam (Maddie Simons Arts Advocate Award)
Joan Farnam was born in Duluth, MN, and grew up in Sept-Iles, Quebec, a small seaport on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, 500 miles from Montreal. After graduating from high school, she attended colleges in Ohio and California, earning a BA in history and an MA in cultural anthropology.

She began her career in journalism at a weekly newspaper on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and worked as an award-winning reporter/photographer for the Lakota Times, (now Indian Country Today) under Native American publisher Tim Giago. She was a reporter and/or correspondent for the Rapid ‘city Journal and the Topeka Capital Journal before moving back to Duluth and working for the Budgeteer News in 1999.

It was here that she began seriously writing about art and artists in her column, Duluth ArtScene, and crafting full-page photo stories in the Budgeteer. The column and features became a mainstay for Duluth artists at the time because the only other Duluth newspaper refused to cover the visual arts at all.

When Joan moved to Grand Marais, she continued her dedication to arts coverage in local newspapers, changing her column’s name to NorthShore ArtScene and eventually going online with it as a blog.  It has become the go-to place for residents and visitors who are looking for information about the arts and arts events in Grand Marais. For more than  15 years she has been tireless in contacting artists, photographers, musicians, writers, art galleries, and others, to find out what’s new and happening to share on her blog, northshoreartscene.info.

She is also an accomplished potter and co-founder of the Ceramics Studio at the Grand Marais Art Colony, where she taught for more than a decade. She helped launch the Empty Bowls fundraiser in Cook County as well as organized several exhibitions to showcase local potters’ work.

Joan is a recent cancer survivor and has partial loss of eyesight, but she has persisted in putting out her blog every week. She pulled together a team of local talent to help her.

In short, Joan has had, and continues to have, a significant, positive impact on the Cook County arts community, and is happy to have helped make Grand Marais one of Minnesota’s premier arts destinations.

Giizh (Sarah) Agaton Howes (Award for Transformational Art)

Giizh (Sarah) Agaton Howes is an Anishinaabe creator, artist, organizer, and CEO. Her Contemporary Ojibwe Design brand Heart Berry brings together traditional stories and aesthetic with pieces for every day. Her work around cultural revitalization focuses on the building a community of makers in the moccasin tradition. She collaborates with artists and organizations to create design from logos to large scale art installations. Heart Berry’s lifestyle brand is an Inspired Natives Collaborator with Eighth Generation taking back Native entrepreneurship, production, and most notably the wool blanket.

About the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council

The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council is dedicated to facilitating and encouraging local arts development in the Arrowhead Region of Minnesota. As one of the 11 regional arts councils in Minnesota, ARAC’s funding is derived from appropriations from the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the State’s general fund and the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund (Legacy Amendment).