A new award, “The Acorn to Oak Tree Tribute,” will recognize four individuals whose endeavors have inspired growth in cultural organizations. It will be presented at Piatt Castle Mac-a-Cheek in West Liberty on Saturday, May 13. Among those to be honored are Mary Mathews of Washington Twp. for her contributions to Carillon Historical Park, Dayton Aviation National Historical Park and the National Aviation Heritage Alliance. The award honors Matthews as an “Innovator in Public History.” Gene Park of Springfield is being recognized posthumously as a Shawneer Keeper of the Land. His widow, Edie West-Park, will accept his award.
Margaret Piatt, interim executive director of the Mac-A-Cheek Foundation, says an oak tree will be planted in honor of each of the award recipients on the grounds surrounding Piatt Castle. “The board of directors believes the accomplishments of these honorees, like oak trees, will be long lasting,” she says.
The invitation-only event is organized by the Mac-A-Cheek Foundation for the Humanities, a nonprofit organization that produces educational experiences at the National Trust site which has been open to the public since 1912.
Meet Michael London
“Every fiber of Michal London’s body flows with ART, and he wants you to share that love,” wrote a grateful Suzanne Pollock, one of many who supported London’s nomination for the Governor’s Award. The two worked together to form an arts council in Monroe County through the Ohio Arts Council’s Minority Arts Program.
“He’s an artist himself from the tip of his head to his toe. He can organize you and your group, he will help you develop your goals, and show you the road to achieve them while cheering for you. Rest assured when he departs, he leaves you with a bag of joy, skills and the assurance your project will succeed,” Pollock wrote in her nomination letter.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Here’s a sampling of London’s many accomplishments:
- He was the first Managing Director of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.
- He served as Arts Consultant with the OAC Minority Arts Program for more than 25 years where he advised on the development of arts programs across the state, specifically in the African American, Native American Indian, Appalachian and Latinx communities.
- He received the highest award from the Ohio Latino Arts Association for his support of, and contributions to, Latino Arts in Ohio.
- He published a three-dimensional novel, “Dearest,” in 2007.
- In 2011 he created the Ohio Playwrights Circle that continues to serve playwrights in the Miami Valley and throughout Ohio. The organization has hosted classes and public readings of new works and educational workshops for playwrights.
“The arts provide a path to bringing folks together that can bridge so many different cultural, linguistic, political and social divides,” says London. " Over the years, I’ve worked in over 60 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and traveled through the rest, and I continued to see the dynamic possibilities for arts activities to bring us together. The Appalachian counties in Ohio might not feel like urban Cleveland but the passion for expressing who we are through storytelling in the theater and music is the same at Karamu House in Cleveland and in Rio Grande, Ohio.”
London has taught at Wright State and Otterbein Universities as well as universities in China, Russia and Brazil. “I saw the same possibilities in all,” he says. " The arts were always our path to connections. And when we can connect we can create communities that want to survive and be healthy. When we can connect, we can create communities of people that want to help each other.”
At the moment, as a result of receiving an Individual Artist Award from the National Endowment of the Arts through Culture Works, he’s working on creating a new play focused on bringing to public attention the voices of Native Americans and their descendants. The project is entitled “Native Voices” and will be completed this year with a public reading at the Loft Theatre.
In June, London, who lives in Brookville, will return to England where he serves as Playwright-in-Residence for the Benjamin Franklin House museum in London. He’s also working on a streaming series entitled “Confessions,” which he hopes to begin shooting this year. Next year he’s hoping to begin research on models of playwriting residencies for development through the Dramatists Guild of America, an organization for which he serves as Ohio Representative.
London first realized he was interested in the theater during his high school days in Columbus. " I was cast in a number of community productions and my high school theater director came to me backstage and asked why I didn’t participate in school plays,” he recalls. " I shared with him that I was too busy with all of the community theater activities. He wouldn’t take no for an answer after that, and I was involved in everything they did till I graduated. "
That interest continued with theater studies at Ohio State University, a dance scholarship at Lamar University in Texas and summer study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. “I was learning that this interest in storytelling was giving me a community of like-minded artists, a community that I enjoyed and felt able to contribute to,” he says.
Meet Mary Mathews
Mary Mathews says history has always been an important part of her everyday experience. “Everyone, every community, has a story to tell,” she believes. “And those stories whether we hear or experience them directly or indirectly influence us. They inspire us, sometimes sadden us, but always teach us.”
When she and her husband moved to Dayton over 40 years ago, one of the first places she visited was Carillon Park. “It was important to me to know the history of my new surroundings,” she explains. “I had written a book about an historic house we lived in before moving here and wanted to learn about my new environment. Little did I dream that I would wind up being the executive director of Carillon Park! That first visit though gave me a good sense of the place where I was going to live.”
Mathews worked on Dayton’s celebration of the Wright brothers discovery of flight and also served as acting director of the Dayton Foundation. She was a member of the Bicentennial Commission of the State of Ohio and a member of the federal advisory board for the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. In 2004, The Mary Chapman Mathews Fund was established by Carillon Park to honor her contributions and support Park projects.
Mathews says she’s been fortunate to meet mentors like the two Fred’s — Smith and Bartenstein — at The Dayton Foundation. “They gave me an opportunity to share that love and respect for history in our everyday lives through Carillon Park.”
She also met Margaret Piatt who, she says, " knows how to make history come alive.” Mathews says those experiences gave her an opportunity to participate in national platforms to share Dayton’s history. “Today Carillon Park and Dayton History continue to enrich our lives with the history of the region and show us what that history teaches as we live in the present and move into the future.”
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