Jo Ellen Hemphill Smith Lifetime Achievement Award

Linda Jackson visit’s the Castle Gallery in the Summer of 2023

Via 21Alive News WPTA
Arts United honors late Fort Wayne artist with Lifetime Achievement Award
Mark Paul Smith also highlights the beginning of the Hemphill Smith Art Foundation

https://www.21alivenews.com/2024/03/06/arts-united-honors-late-fort-wayne-artist-with-lifetime-achievement-award/

Excerpt…
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - Arts United announced the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award on Monday morning.

Arts United has crowned the late local artist Jody Hemphill Smith as the Lifetime Achievement Award winner for the 2024 Arts United Awards, given to someone who “makes significant contributions through art and culture,” a press release by Arts United says.

According to leaders with Arts United, Hemphill Smith was a successful artist for over 50 years and an art educator for more than 15. In 1995, Jody, and her husband Mark Paul Smith purchased the old Fort Wayne Museum of Art building in the west central neighborhood and turned it into the Castle Gallery Fine Art business that Mark still operates today.

A press release by Arts United reads, “Sadly, Jody’s devotion to the Fort Wayne arts community ended in October when she passed away. She has left a legacy of artistic excellence, collaboration, arts education, and historic preservation.”