Reception and awards ceremony: October 8, 6-9 p.m.
2 First Place Prizes: $12,000
2 Second Place Prizes: $5000
Honorable Mention Prizes at jurors’ discretion: $1000
First Place Realism: Ewuresi Archer, “MADAM”
First Place Abstract: Susan Squires, “reflection”
Second Place Realism: Elisa Albrecht, “Spark”
Second Place Abstract: Phillip Buntin, “Narrow Bands Divide Us, Fall Away”
Honorable Mentions:
Judy Takacs, “Trust Women”
David A. Leas, “Untitled”
Alison Stinely, “Conglomerate V”
Leigh Brooklyn, “We Have Come to Save You”
Rebecca Kaler, “The Lake Series #2”
Mathew Kolodziej, “Vessel”
Paul Tikkanen was a contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer born in Ashtabula in 1926. He was a graduate of Ashtabula Harbor High School and the Cleveland Institute of Art. In 1957, his oil painting “Chipped Crystal” won a Special Mention award in the Cleveland Art Museum’s May Show. He exhibited pieces in Ohio shows at Topky Memorial Library, the Cleveland Art Museum, the Ashtabula Fine Arts Center, the Ashtabula Arts Association, and the Butler Institute of American Art. He married his wife Norma Stenberg Tikkanen of Saybrook, Ohio, in 1958. Paul and Norma traveled extensively during their life together, visiting Mexico, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Paul studied, created, and showed art around the world, and worked in the United States as a draftsman, carpenter, boiler operator, sign painter, commercial artist, and portrait painter. He and Norma renovated the Old Ninevah School in Geneva, Ohio into an art studio, and he later established a studio on Lake Road.
Paul Tikkanen hoped to see visual arts flourish in this area, and wanted to encourage and promote both established and rising fine arts painters in Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania. To that end, he left an endowment to the Ashtabula Arts Center to establish a painting competition. This competition will be held annually at the Arts Center.
