Thank you for attending the 2025 State Arts Awards. On this page, you will be able to find information about this year’s winners, partners, award artist, and even previous winners!
Founded in 1990, WhyArts began as a small initiative to bring arts experiences to individuals with disabilities in Omaha. Over the past three decades, it has grown into a leading nonprofit arts organization that partners with schools, human service agencies, and community centers across the metro area to ensure that the transformative power of the arts is accessible to all—especially those who have historically been excluded due to disability, income, age, or other barriers.
WhyArts provides high-quality visual, performing, and literary arts programming through a diverse roster of professional teaching artists trained to adapt content for all abilities and learning styles. The organization’s work centers on inclusion, creativity, and empowerment, and it serves more than 6,000 individuals each year by providing access to over 3,000 workshops per year.
WhyArts provides access to inclusive arts education and experiences for historically marginalized and underserved communities by creating strategic partnerships that connect professional teaching artists with community organizations.
Ruth Davidson Hahn, a professional choreographer, dancer, and teacher, is the founder, President, and Artistic Director of Ruth Davidson Hahn & Company, established in Nebraska in 2001. The company, comprised of dancers and musicians, has showcased its performances across Nebraska.
Ruth, a 2013 Stanley J. Wertheimer Fellow specially trained in the Dance for PD® method, and specially trained with Lifetime Arts, national leaders in creative aging program development, is now dedicated to spreading the joy of dance to various underserved communities. For more than 10 years she has served adults with Parkinson’s disease, their caregivers, spouses, and partners, with an uplifting Dance Arts Outreach Program. Dance for Parkinson’s, taught in the internationally acclaimed Dance for PD® method at Nebraska School of the Performing Arts, utilizes the power of dance, music, and creativity to improve mobility and quality of life. It is also available as Contemporary Dance for the Ageless and Unstoppable for older adults in Senior Centers, Retirement, and Assisted Living Communities, and finally, as Dancing Hearts,
catering to agencies of adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities and their Direct Support Professional Staff.
Ruth, a native New Yorker, now lives in Nebraska – the country’s center – pulling her artistic inspiration from the quiet and profound voices of this prairie place. She is an award-winning graduate of the High School of Performing Arts and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from SUNY at Purchase. Her distinguished career includes 21 years as a founding member and dancer with the Mark Morris Dance Group (1980-2001), where she had the unique opportunity to perform with esteemed artists including dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, along with dancing in numerous internationally broadcast television programs, including the two award winning productions Falling Down Stairs, with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Dido and Aeneas. Earlier, Ruth danced with both the Hannah Kahn Dance Company and the Don Redlich Dance Company, where she had the privilege of being choreographed on and performing works by the renowned dance master, Hanya Holm. Ruth also appears in the
biographical film Hanya: Portrait of a Pioneer, narrated by Julie Andrews, which documents Holm’s impactful career in modern dance.
A highlight of Ruth’s choreographic career was her collaboration with dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, creating a solo for the national tour of his evening of dance Solos with
Piano or Not, 2003, and having him perform this work as a guest artist with her company here at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts in that same year. Ruth also served as the resident choreographer for Millennial Arts Productions, a New York City-based multimedia company dedicated to creating productions of oratorios staged with singers, live orchestras, and a dance theater ensemble. Her choreographic credits with the company include Igor Stravinsky’s Pulcinella (1997), George Frederic Handel’s Esther alongside Jean Racine’s play of Esther (1998), and Handel’s Messiah (1999).
Ruth is honored and thrilled to be named the recipient of the 2025 Nebraska State Arts Award for Access to Arts, recognizing her significant contributions to making art accessible to all members of the community.
Cody Talarico taught music in the Bellevue (NE) Public Schools and is currently serving Nebraska as the Arts Education Specialist at the Nebraska Department of Education where he leads and supports visual arts, media arts, dance, music and theatre education. He also serves arts education nationally, on the Executive Team for SEADAE, the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education.
Cody earned a Master of Music, with an emphasis in Education and his administrative endorsement in Curriculum Supervision from the University of Nebraska Omaha (Omaha, NE) and a Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, in K-12 Vocal and Instrumental Music Education from Hastings College (Hastings, NE). Cody also holds pedagogical certification in Orff Schulwerk, an approach to teaching and learning music, completing training at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Lincoln, NE) and George Mason University (Fairfax, VA). Cody has also completed an Orff Schulwerk Masters Level Masters in composition at George Mason, as well as Dalcroze Musicianship in and Orff Schulwerk Curriculum Development at St. Thomas University (St. Paul, MN).
Cody participates and presents at statewide, regional, and national conferences and professional learning workshops throughout Nebraska’s Education Service Units. He is also a member of national and state organizations, serving on committees, board, and work groups.
Cody has been honored as the “Administrator/Supervisor of the Year” by the Nebraska Art Teachers Association. He is a professional musician and an all-around arts fanatic who resides in the Omaha, NE, area with his family. One of his greatest joys is seeing how the arts and arts education connect us.
Lorinda Rice is the Visual Arts Curriculum Specialist for Lincoln Public Schools, where she leads K–12 art educators in developing art-based integration and inquiry practices. With 17 years of classroom experience, she now focuses on supporting teachers in building curriculum, resources, and professional learning grounded in art education research with her amazing teachers. Lorinda advocates for process-focused artmaking that highlights how artists observe, question, expand their thinking, to connect and make meaning of the world around them.
She has served on the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Board as Supervision and Administration Director and has contributed to numerous national initiatives, including the Executive Financial Committee, and Research Commission. She has held leadership roles within the Nebraska Art Teachers Association. She was recently appointed to the Lincoln Arts Council and Nebraskans For The Arts Boards.
Lorinda was part of a $1.9 million grant team supporting art-based inquiry and interdisciplinary learning with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She has received multiple honors, including the Lincoln Mayor’s Gladys Lux Art Education Award, NATA’s Roscoe Shields Service Award, and the NAEA Western Region Supervision and Administration Award. She is a frequent national presenter, sharing strategies to empower art educators as leaders and innovators. The emerging curriculum and pedagogy of her art teacher’s work has been showcased at district conferences, museums and other state organizations.
Beyond her passion for art education, she exhibits her own work at the Burkholder Project. She lives in Lincoln with her husband, Lonnie Connelly, and son, Caden, who lovingly support her in following these passions.
Involvement with the arts has been a life-long and joyful journey for Audrey Kauders. Starting with ballet at a young age in her hometown of Seattle, she trained professionally both in Seattle and New York City before becoming a dance major at Adelphi University, Garden City, Long Island. After marriage, she moved to Montgomery, Alabama where, for 13 years, she taught, choreographed, performed, and directed both a ballet school and performing arts company. Her artistic reach also extended to theatrical, musical, and operatic productions. Audrey completed her undergraduate work at Huntingdon College as a Speech and Drama major before starting part-time at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, utilizing her arts administration experience.
With widowhood several years later, she accepted a full-time position at Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum and moved to Nebraska. Soon she was asked to join the Omaha Ballet Board where she met her future husband – proof that the arts truly bring people together. Some 21 years later, she retired from Joslyn as Deputy Director, during which time she also earned an Executive MBA degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Following a year of what turned out to be temporary retirement, she became Director of the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney. Retiring (again) after 17 years at MONA, the intervening six years have seen her devote time to a variety of arts and humanities endeavors.
Over her career, Audrey has served as a grant reviewer for such national entities as the National Endowment for the Arts and Institute of Museum and Library Services, and regionally the Nebraska Arts Council. In addition, she has review experience with foundation-based grants and scholarships.
She has been honored as an Outstanding Woman of Distinction by Omaha’s (Y)WCA, Distinguished Alumni Award by UNO’s College of Business, and the Chancellor’s Commendation Medal from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
Today, Audrey continues to support arts and culture as a board member including the Kearney Symphony Orchestra, Kearney Cultural Partners/Bricks Creative District, Nebraska Museums Association, Frank Museum of History & Culture, Kearney Area Storytelling Festival, and the Kearney Area Community Foundation. Passionate about creative endeavors, she thrives on new projects, community engagement, and fresh adventures and experiences that make for a very meaningful and active retirement.
Audrey stays in touch with her two adult children, their spouses, and her four grandchildren, who live on opposite coasts, through trips, vacations, and the wonder of weekly video calls.
Gretchen Peters is an advocate for the arts. She volunteers for the arts, makes art and teaches art.
She taught art at Gering High School for 35 years and now makes art derived from her surroundings, using colored pencil as the medium. Her students received many awards for their creativity and Gretchen has received over a hundred awards for her teaching and artistic skills. Her work hangs in numerous collections across the country, including two works at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney.
She serves on Oregon Trail Days and West Nebraska Arts Center committees locally, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment Advisory Council. Gretchen’s previous board work includes: Nebraska Arts Council, Humanities Nebraska, Judicial Nominating Commission, West Nebraska Arts Center, Theatre West, Nebraskans for the Arts, Prairie Visions, Nebraska State Historical Society.
In 2023, she organized the selection, fundraising and installation of three outstanding contemporary Nebraska sculptures for the new Gering Civic Plaza. Currently she is working on Chautauqua and Creative District projects for Gering.
Gretchen earned degrees at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Chadron State College, summa cum laude. She works and resides in Gering, Nebraska
The Whiteclay Makerspace, a non-profit organization founded in 2018, was established to provide space and resources for artists in the Whiteclay/Pine Ridge Reservation area to create, promote and market their artwork. They opened their doors in the former Arrowhead Inn, a liquor store that closed in 2017 as a result of liquor licensing changes in Whiteclay. Previously, Whiteclay, Nebraska, population eight, was known for its four liquor stores that sold millions of cans of beer yearly, primarily to residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation, located just north of Whiteclay.
The Makerspace has been a cornerstone of rebuilding and rebranding Whiteclay, which now has two discount stores, a tax preparation business, and two long-running grocery and retail stores.
A market study from First People’s Fund revealed that an estimated 30 percent of all Native peoples are practicing or potential artists and most live below the poverty line. 51% of Native households on the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation depend on home-based enterprises for cash income and 79% of those home-based enterprises consist of some form of traditional arts.
This need for creative expression and economic stability was answered by Makerspace.
The Whiteclay Makerspace building provides a space for local Indigenous artisans to create work, grow in their craft, and preserve and transfer this knowledge and culture across generations. In addition to providing a safe place to create art, it also houses state of the art equipment that artisans can use such as industrial quilting machines, sewing machines, canvas stretchers, easels and work tables, carpentry tools and other specialized equipment. Classes are held to provide encouragement and instruction to others and it is through this mentoring that a sense of community and collaboration are built.
The Makerspace has opened a trading post within it’s walls that sells craft supplies such as beads, needles, thread, leather, paint, pellon, latigo, and different materials for sewing projects such as star quilts and ribbon skirts. The Makerspace also provides storefront and online sales where the artists can market their art to a broader audience.
The Whiteclay Makerspace is building relationships, trust and enhancing Native American cultural heritage through the arts.
Left to Right: Nathaniel Cacy, Judy Haney, Anne Steinhoff, Steven Tamayo, Alyesse Walker, Nicole Benegas, Mary Umberger, Rebecca Tamayo, Carlos Sandoval
Bluebird Cultural Initiative was founded by Steven and Susan Tamayo in 2016, when Steve was teaching traditional arts for the young relatives at the DAPL protest camp at Standing Rock, SD. Steven has spent more than 30 years studying and practicing the history, culture and traditions of the Native American Tribes of the Great Plains as a consultant and educator.
In 2021 Bluebird Cultural Initiative grew into the organization that it is today, solidifying itself in the Omaha Metropolitan area as an organization that provides consistent, culturally-infused youth and family programs focused on the arts and culture. Through this work, Native communities may find healing through traditional practices. Bluebird Cultural Initiative continues to provide professional development to all levels of educational institutions, healthcare providers and other organizations. Our mission drives our organization daily. We strive to revitalize cultural practices to energize the future for our Native communities and enrich all communities’ understanding of Native people through education, awareness, and advocacy. Our vision is to support and strengthen cultural values, traditions, and identity for Native peoples across generations in order to heal and prosper.
The successes of Bluebird Cultural Initiative are seen in the support of our community and donors, and in the trust and continued belief that we provide a safe and inclusive space to gather, learn, grow and heal. The increased sense of belonging and cultural connection through the traditional arts have impacted the daily lives and health of the Native communities and communities-at-large that we serve.
The International Quilt Museum (IQM) stands as Nebraska’s premier cultural institution dedicated to the preservation and celebration of quilting traditions from around the world. Founded in 1997 when native Nebraskans Ardis and Robert James donated their collection of nearly 950 quilts to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the museum has grown to house the world’s largest publicly held quilt collection containing more than 10,000 quilts and artifacts from over 65 countries, highlighting incredible examples of material culture from the 1600s to contemporary creations.
The museum’s extraordinary architectural presence on the University of Nebraska – Lincoln campus—a stunning glass and brick “green” building has become an iconic Nebraska landmark. The building itself is a tribute to quilts: the glass windows on the front resemble a quilt top, the brick exterior incorporates quilt block designs, and the glass-walled reception hall is shaped like the eye of a needle.
The International Quilt Museum received accreditation, the highest national recognition a museum canreceive, from the American Alliance of Museums in 2013 and its reaccreditation in 2023.
The International Quilt Museum’s mission is to build a global collection and audience that celebrate the cultural and artistic significance of quilts. The museum doesn’t merely display quilts; it contextualizes them as important cultural artifacts that tell stories of human creativity, resilience, and connection across generations and borders.
The museum’s curatorial excellence is evident in its thoughtful exhibitions that explore diverse perspectives—from historical American patterns to contemporary art quilts and international textile traditions. The museum presents 12-15 exhibitions annually. Recent exhibitions have showcased everything from Civil War-era reconciliation quilts to innovative contemporary fiber art from Japan, India, and Central Asia. Accompanying programming includes opening-night lectures, gallery talks, workshops, virtual events, and museum tours—ranging from daily docent-led tours to specialized behind-the-scenes, public, private, and homeschool visits. IQM staff also regularly present at local, national, and international events on quilt-related topics.
Bone Creek Art Museum was founded by a group of volunteers in 2007 with the mission “to connect people to the land through art.” It became the nation’s only art museum dedicated exclusively to agrarian art.
David City is the hometown of nationally recognized artist Dale Nichols whose work is the heart of the permanent collection. In May of 2011, a major exhibit and book (Transcending Regionalism) published by Bone Creek brought 2800 visitors from throughout the nation. Even before moving to our new and much larger space we entertained visitors from all 50 states and 13 foreign countries.
In April 2025, they moved into their new space and hosted a standing room only crowd in attendance for its reopening. Gathered in the front multi-purpose room, which originally served as the vehicle showroom of the Ford Motor Co. assembly plant, over 450 people enjoyed the festivities of the day. Restoring an historic 1917 building and bringing new life to its solid bones, Bone Creek now has the room it so desperately needed to store and exhibit out collection as well as offer cultural and educational opportunities.
Daniel Martinez, Flamenco guitar composer and teacher hails from Iquitos, Peru. Martinez first picked up the guitar as a young teen at the encouragement of his mother. It wasn’t until he moved to the United States in 2002 that he started to take his music seriously. Martinez honed his skills through the mastery of classical guitar training and preparing for and winning national guitar competitions.
Daniel has performed in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and across the United States. Today, he plays all musical styles, but his specialties are Latin rhythms such as Flamenco, Rumba, Bossa nova, Jazz, Bolero, Bachata and more. He has four solo instrumental recordings later, and many music collaborations, he is a sought-after instructor of all styles of guitar for all ages as well as being a familiar presence on stages in the region. Daniel is also guitar professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University, Union Adventist University and owner of Daniel Martinez Music. Martinez is a Music and Culture touring and teaching artist through the Nebraska Arts Council, Teaching Artist for The Lied Center for Performing Arts, Guest Artist for John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. He is also a passionate instrumental artist for Pacific Press, Chapel Records, 3ABN TV station, and Loma Linda Broadcast Network TV.
Daniel Martinez was awarded the Lincoln Mayor’s Choice Award in 2023 and also the 2023 Here’s to the Heroes Award.
Sarah Rowe is a visual artist based in Omaha, Nebraska. She utilizes methods of painting, installation, performance, and Native American ceremony in unconventional ways. Rowe’s work is participatory, a call to action, and re-imagines traditional Indigenous symbology to fit the narrative of today’s global landscape.
Rowe was awarded a Harpo Foundation painting fellowship at Vermont Studio Center and residencies with the Great Plains Art Museum, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, John Michael Kohler Arts ExAIR, the Union for Contemporary Art, Joslyn Castle, and Nalu Gallery in Mexico. Her work is in the permanent collections of Bates Museum of Art, the Great Plains Art Museum, and Homestead National Park. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Joslyn Art Museum, the Museum of Nebraska Art, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Sheldon Museum of Art, and the National Willa Cather Center. Her current solo exhibition Water Ledger is on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center through January 2026. She won best in printmaking at the 2021 Nebraska Biennial. A recent project on a very large scale, award-winning Starseeds, is a mural that spans 15 silos in South Omaha.
Rowe is on the artist faculty of WhyArts and a teaching artist on the Nebraska Arts Council roster. She serves as a committee member of Joslyn Art Museum, the Museum of Nebraska Art and the Great Plains Museum Visualizing Reconciliation Advisory Group. She is a board member of the Nebraska Crossroads Music Festival and board chair of LALA. She is a former board member of Humanities Nebraska. Rowe holds a BA in Studio Art from Webster University, studying in Saint Louis, Missouri, and Vienna, Austria. She is Lakota and an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska.
Todd Stein has served since 2016 as the President and CEO of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA), a US Regional Arts Organization in service to the states of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Mid-America Arts Alliance partners with and supports artists, organizations and communities to grow access to the arts, culture, and creativity. We believe the arts and creativity encourage empathy, improve health and well-being, and further the understanding of ourselves and each other. While at M-AAA, the programming and services for artists and arts and cultural organizations have expanded regionally, nationally, and internationally through collaboration with our sibling regional arts organizations and replication of existing programs in new
geographies. Stein served as Co-Chair of the US Regional Arts Organizations from May 2022 through September 2024.
With nearly 30 years in arts administration, Stein previously served M-AAA in the roles of Chief Operating Officer and Director of Finance and Administration. Prior to M-AAA, Stein was the Deputy Director and COO of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri for eight years.
Platos con Frutas by Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez
Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez is a Colombo-American artist with an interdisciplinary practice. Her work investigates the complex intersections of migration, identity, gender, cultural memory, and the effects of colonization. She is creating an intersectional feminist visual novel that is a multifaceted project comprised of paintings, sculptures, objects, and mixed media that together—and in different voices—weave a synchronicity of narratives about hybridity and cultural ownership.
She is in the Elisabeth Sackler Feminist Art Base at the Brooklyn Museum and represented Colombia at the 20 Congreso Internacional: La Experiencia Intelectual de las Mujeres en el Siglo XXI in 2012 in Mexico City. Exhibition highlights include: the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT; the Nerman Museum of Art, Overland Park, KS; the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; La Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador; the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE; the Joslyn Museum of Art, Omaha, NE; the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY; and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
She has been awarded U.S. Latinx Fellowship, the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting, a Nebraska Arts Council Fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Fellowship, a Puffin grant, a Pollock Krasner grant, and a NALAC grant. She has held residencies at Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia; Art OMI, Ghent, NY; Fountainhead, Miami, FL; the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM; Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; Gasworks, London, England; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; and the Bronx Museum for the Arts, New York, NY.
Nancy co-runs FIENDISH PLOTS an exhibition space in Lincoln, NE with her husband Charley Friedman.
Jamy Elker- credited interpreter with the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf RID.
Holly Lukasiewicz of District 2 Floral Studio, Omaha, NE
ONPXL shot and edited the video interviews for each of the awardees, as well as provided live streaming of the ceremony tonight.
As a digital studio we produce video projects from initial concept to completion. We check all the boxes. Nonprofits are our focus, so we understand how to best communicate an organization’s mission, as well as all the tools and platforms available to share that mission with the biggest audience. Alongside our commitment to producing top-notch motion content we have also cultivated other skills. Education is important to us, so we conduct workshops for all ages. We’ve spent a great deal of time in the marketing, branding, and design world, so we’ve been known to design or consult on branding strategy and website development. We’re a production duo and ONPXL is our sandbox where we come together to create, produce, and partner on new projects. We have been creating and producing together for over 15 years, so we have developed a shorthand that allows us to be nimble, mobile, and efficient. Above all else, we believe that creativity and quality are the most important elements to producing dynamic, thoughtful, original video content.
Matt Bross
Chad Eacker
The Nebraska Arts Council’s (NAC’s) mission is to promote, cultivate and sustain the arts for the people of Nebraska. To achieve this purpose, NAC provides grants and services to artists, organizations, and communities. NAC, a state agency, supports programs and organizations through its matching grants program funded by the Nebraska Legislature, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
Nebraskans for the Arts is a statewide organization dedicated to advocation for the arts and arts education. To find out how you can share your voice for the arts visit nebraskansforthearts.org
The Nebraska Cultural Endowment is the private partner in a public-private partnership with the State of Nebraska to ensure livelihood of the arts and humanities in our state. A contribution to CNE is matched by the income from a public fund to support the statewide educational initiatives programs and projects of the Nebraska Arts Council and Humanities of Nebraska. For information on how you can contribute to NCE, please visit nebraskaculturalendowment.org.