Arts group announces 2008 award winners

Two artists with a flair for spontaneity will be awarded the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri's most esteemed honor today.

Dodie Eisenhauer, who uses screen wire as a medium, will be honored with the 2008 Dingeldein Award for Excellence. The award is named after council founder Otto F. Dingeldein and recognizes people who have made significant, culture-enriching contributions to the art community.

Acting council director Richard Webb will receive the Jeff Maguire Friend of the Arts Award. It is given to artists, nonartists or organizations that support the council and promotion of the arts. Maguire was a local arts patron.

Council leaders will present Eisenhauer and Webb their awards at a First Friday opening reception at 4 p.m. today at the council's galleries, 32 N. Main St.

"Dodie has decades of service with the Best of Missouri Hands, and Richard was responsible for starting the ARoundTown program," said Valaree Rutherford, an administrative assistant for the council.

Eisenhauer started as a folk artist, working mainly with "paint and old tinware." The idea to use screen wire "just dropped into my head one morning," she said. Using leftover wire from an abandoned project, Eisenhauer manipulated the wire into a bow. She continued by making baskets, displays and more bows, taking them with her to a Texas gift show in 1989.

"It was not anything I'd ever seen," she said. "I really loved how it felt, what it did."

Successful from the start, Eisenhauer sells the work through her Daisy, Mo., business, Village Designs. She also mentors other artists through the organization Best of Missouri Hands, taking artists with her to wholesale shows. During the winter, she sells her designs at the gift shop Grandma's House.

Webb began woodcarving, pottery and watercolor after retiring in 1991. He has been a member of the arts council for five years and interim director since July. Webb is also a member of the Best of Missouri Hands.

"I really like the medias I work with because they're free flowing and you don't really control those three medias too much. You take what the wood gives you and try to bring out what's in the wood, especially the grain. Watercolor is kind of a spontaneous media, and raku pottery is not a highly controlled process," he said.

He started ARoundTown, a network of artists and studios that collaborate for a gallery walk on the first Friday of each month. He said he was surprised by his award because "there are a lot of deserving people in the arts council."

lbavolek@semissourian.com

388-3627