The true answer, of course, is that it takes all of them working in creative concert, and nearly 300 came together on Friday afternoon to celebrate the great artistic synergies in New Haven through the 2006 Arts Awards ceremonies convened by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven at the Lawn Club.

The ceremonies were a kind of lovefest in two parts, the first being the presentation of the C. Newton Schenck, III Award for Lifetime Achievement in and Contribution to the Arts to Roslyn Milstein Meyer and Jerome Meyer. Their dedication to the arts in New Haven “” encompassing foundational support for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Long Wharf Theatre, and the youth organization LEAP, among many other passionate pursuits “” is surpassed only by love of family, according to Ms. Meyer.

“Nobody has ever done more than Roz and Jerry,” said Louise Endel (to the right in the photo), a fellow member of many New Haven boards, “in every dimension in New Haven arts, and I mean support of every kind, financial, in spirit, in wisdom, everything. They are the most generous and thoughtful people I have ever met.” That sentiment was certainly shared by Sally Glick (beside Endel), who with her husband Stephen were, for the tenth consecutive year, sponsors of the awards lunch through their Coordinated Financial Resources/Chambers Insurance Trust business.

While the lifetime achievement awards have been presented only since 1998, 2006 marked the 26th year the Council has honored working artists and organizations. This year’s theme was “revolutionary visionaries,” that is artists such as Delmance Ras Mo Moses, one of the five 2006 awardees who choose to deploy their art not only to make beauty but also to change individual lives and with that improve the community.

Moses was honored for his work as a “visionary community artist” who through his work with the International Festival of Arts and Ideas and many other organizations does programs of theater, song, and poetry for foster kids, prisoners, and other marginalized groups to help, in his accepting remarks, “bring people from depression to joy.” The audience of luncheon-eaters was brought to attentive stillness by Moses’s recalling how a young boy, who was in one of his theater workshops on gang violence one Friday afternoon, was trying to act out a scene of grief over the body of a friend who had been killed. Since the child had no experience of this in his own young life, he was not doing much, theatrically, and, Moses said, “We kept saying, ‘bring more emotion to it. More!’ That weekend was the one when Justus Suggs was shot and killed in the Hill. The boy in my class was Justus’ good friend; he sat beside him in the hospital until the end. On Monday he came back, and we resumed, with his permission, and the theater was an outlet to him, and to many kids like him without access to therapy.”

Other awardees included Nick Lloyd, at the bottom left in this team photo, who restored the architectural gem of Firehouse 12 on Crown Street as a home for music performance that also helps transform the neighborhood. Laura McCargar, seated beside Lloyd, and her team from Youth Rights Media (second row to the right) were honored for the teaching of art and video technology in a way that galvanizes.

“I tell the kids,” said McCarger, “that when you pick up a camera, you have the power to see the world anew and make others see it that way. And when you turn the camera on yourself, you can also change how people view you.” Youth Rights Media did a documentary on the Connecticut Juvenile Training School that influenced the powers that be to investigate and, ultimately, to shut down that facility.

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and its forensic artist, Michael Anderson (second row far left), were cited for their achievements including outreach to the community through activities such as the Martin Luther King Jr. and Fiesta Latina events, and most recently the new bronze Torosaurus that has changed forever a ride down Whitney Avenue.

The fifth awardee was Arte Inc, an arts and cultural organization at Grand and Front Streets in Fair Haven headed by Danny Diaz (to the left in the photo) and David Greco. Founded only two years ago to bring Latino arts and culture to the mainstream, and the mainstream to Latino neighborhoods, in Greco’s phrase, Arte has already succeeded in helping to sell $30,000 worth of Latino Art and raising $17,000 in arts scholarship funds for students. “For example,” said Greco, whose day job is a marketing consultant (the entire organization is volunteer), “we did a show last year called Tabaco, Cana, Café,” or Tobacco, Sugar Cane, and Coffee. With art and artifacts and texts we were showing the significance of these common items to so many Latin countries. Thousands of school kids came, and tonight we’re organizing a “parranda,” a traditional Latin kind of Christmas caroling, complete with the serving of chicken soup. Everyone’s invited.”

“We’d been involved in the arts,” added Diaz, “for ten years and felt there wasn’t enough Hispanic participation or interest. What we’re getting now is 60% of our attendees are non-Hispanic, and that’s exactly right. Plus when Ballet Hispanico, for example, comes to the Shubert, through organized ticket sales and special events we bring people in Fair Haven to the Shubert to see this world-class Latino art who might normally not go. That’s what the arts can do.”

There were hoots of appreciation for all the awardees, but a standing ovation for the lifetime awardees, Roz and Jerry Meyers. And Meyers, a psychoanalyst by training, until he closed down his practice and took up sculpture full time, left the audience with a great deal to think about: “Speaking as a psychoanalyst,” he said, “the world is in pretty much of a mess. There’s a kind of hegemony of greed and territoriality that emphasizes the differences between us. I want to ask you: Who can tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shia? But anyone of us can walk into a mosque and be awestruck by the decorative art there … art is universal …art unifies people. It’s the best we have to show for ourselves, an antithesis to the mess. Not that art can solve the world’s problems, but it goes a long way.”

And that was worth a standing ovation, for sure, and maybe another big kiss.

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