Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award

2013 Recipient: Gahyun (Esther) Kim

Join us on June 11th for a reception celebrating Gahyun ‘Esther’ Kim, 2013 recipient of the Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award! Her work will be on display at the Betty Mae Kramer Gallery and Music Room Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 28.

Esther is a graduating senior at T. S. Wootton High School and the Visual Art Center at Albert Einstein High School. This fall, she plans to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. She has not yet declared a major, but is leaning heavily towards pursuing art. Esther has been involved in MCPS’s Visual Art program held at Einstein High School for three consecutive years. In addition, she has enrolled in after-school classes at both OpenArt Studio and Shineh Art Studio. Esther has previously participated and received recognition in the Maryland Federal Duck Stamp Competition, the Scholastic Inc. Art and Writing Awards, the YoungArts Awards in Visual Arts, and the Yellow Barn Studio & Gallery’s 14th Annual Exhibition. She was inducted into the National Art Honor Society at her high school, and is also a budding cellist. She has performed with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra for seven consecutive years and the Maryland All State Orchestra for three years. She lives with both of her parents and sister, who is a flutist in the MCYO as well.

Introduction

Arts patron Ida F. Haimovicz developed her artistic talent as a sculptor late in life, but as she grew older she wished that she had started much sooner. Because of this, she wanted to encourage young people to develop and pursue their talent in visual art while they are young. In her memory, her family created an endowment with the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC). AHCMC gratefully recognizes the Family of Ida F. Haimovicz for their generous gift to endow this award

Purpose

This award is given to a high school senior graduating in the class of 2013 who is enrolled in a public or non-public high school in Montgomery County to benefit his/her pursuit of a visual arts career. The $3,000 Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award for 2013 will be granted following a juried selection process that is based upon artistic merit of the original work submitted and the applicant’s potential for a visual arts career, not financial need.

Eligibility

An applicant must meet all of the following criteria:

Be a Montgomery County resident
Be enrolled full-time during the fall semester of their senior year in a public or non-public high school located in Montgomery County, and
Have a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.5.

Applications Deadline

Applications for the 2013 Award are no longer being accepted. Please check back next year for information about the 2014 application process. Below are the 2013 guidelines and application materials for your reference:

2013 Haimovicz Guidelines
2013 Haimovicz Application
2013 Disclaimer and Responsibilities

Application Preparation Assistance

AHCMC staff will provide assistance to those applying for the Haimovicz Visual Arts Award. Applicants are encouraged to contact AHCMC with any questions they may have. Assistance is available via email, phone or in-person by contacting Robert Hanson at robert.hanson@creativemoco.com or 301-565-3805.

2012 Recipient: Samantha Ritchie

Congratulations to Samantha Ritchie, recipient of the 2012 Haimovicz Visual Arts Award! Samantha is a recent graduate of Albert Einstein High School and will continue her study of art at Cooper Union in New York City in the fall. Learn more about her and her work below:

“Art is an essential part of my life. I have always been an artistic individual and I have grown up in a world of art. Foremost, my parents are artists. At home, art supplies are plentiful and I am surrounded by a library of art books and a wealth of inspiration from the family artifacts we collect and display. Also, my parents both work at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I went to pre-school and kindergarten on the National Mall, and learned about my world through the culture and artifacts found in the museums located there. Growing up behind-the-scenes in a museum, I established a respect for art and learned a lot about art history at a young age.

This exhibit is primarily made up of my series on representational still life. In my daily life, I am surrounded by collections that fill my home. I have been creating drawings and paintings of these personal family collections as a way to record and acknowledge the pieces depicted as well as explore rhythm and repetition in my compositions.

There is a connection that I have with these objects because they belong to or once belonged to members of my family. And I find beauty in the nostalgia that comes with depicting objects from a different era. With some of the collections, I chose to include the surrounding interior of where they are found in my home. But with the other smaller objects, I changed the scale, making them much larger. When these tiny objects are abstracted this way, they are able to be examined and seen from a new vantage point. There is common vertical pattern in these pieces and this is not coincidental. I feel that by lining up the objects like this, I am able to represent each object as an individual as well as allowing for them to be examined as a part of the group. The unity and variety that is inherent with collections creates a rhythm and movement across the space.”

About the Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award

The Ida F. Haimovicz Visual Arts Award, now in its sixteenth year, was established by the family of the late Ida F. Haimovicz to support a Montgomery County high school senior intent on pursuing a visual arts career. The Haimovicz award, a cash award of $3,000, is administered by the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County.

At age 64, Mrs. Haimovicz, a resident of North Bethesda, attended a sculpture class at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. This class started Mrs. Haimovicz on a much-loved hobby, says her son Joseph Hamer. "She began sculpting at home, but the clay became heavier and heavier as she grew older. She realized that she should have started much earlier in life." Mrs. Haimovicz wanted to provide financial aid to deserving high school students to enjoy their creativity while still young.

Past recipients

Daniel Toretsky (2011)
Aaron Kuhn (2010)
Elena Hutchinson (2009)
Brooke Kao (2008)
Hannah Wides (2007)
Jamie Eakin (2006)
Rebecca Sugar (2005)
Julia Chiplis (2004)
Christine Wang (2003)
Gabriel Abrantes (2002)
Brendan Wiuff (2001)
Justin Craun (2000)
James Johnson (1999)
Rachel Cox (1998)