TOLEDO – The Ohio Museum Association Awards program is an annual celebration of the outstanding
achievement of Ohio museums in visual communications, individual and institutional achievement, and the
work museum professionals undertake to help advance Ohio’s museum community both locally and on a
national level.
The 2019 awards, announced recently, include four awards to two Toledo museums: the Toledo Museum of Art
and the National Museum of the Great Lakes.
Toledo Museum of Art’s youth and family programs manager, Maria Iafelice, was named Emerging Professional
of the Year. The catalog for Life Is a Highway: Art and American Car Culture, written by TMA Senior
Works on Paper Curator Robin Reisenfeld with guest author Eleanor Heartney, was chosen as Best
Exhibition Catalog.
The National Museum of the Great Lakes received two awards in the Visual Communications category: A Gold
Award for their 2019 Annual Fund Campaign and A Silver Award for Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario: A Journey
of Discovery by Jim Kennard.
“Our community is well represented by the outstanding people and projects receiving recognition from
OMA,” said Adam M. Levine, TMA’s Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey director. “Maria Iafelice’s
leadership and passion for art, the community and the Museum are remarkable and have made TMA and Toledo
a better place in her years with us. And we are thrilled that Robin Reisenfeld’s outstanding work on the
Life Is a Highway catalog has been recognized.”
“We are honored to be part of the Toledo museum community and to have our work recognized by OMA,” said
Christopher Gillcrist, executive director of The National Museum of the Great Lakes. “Our annual fund
campaign connected marvelously with our donors and their unique stories, and Jim Kennard’s Shipwrecks of
Lake Ontario shares important discoveries in our recent history.”
About the Winners
Maria Iafelice, the Toledo Museum of Art’s youth & family programs manager, exemplifies the
definition of an emerging leader. Since joining the Museum’s education staff in 2015, Iafelice has
worked tirelessly to engage the community through gallery and campus experiences for inter-generational
audiences. Iafelice established the Teen Leader program, formerly known as the Teen Apprentice program,
in 2015 to serve the needs of the youth, the community and the Museum, and the combined goals related to
developing future community leaders. While it was first established with one school, Toledo School for
the Arts, Iafelice has expanded the Teen Leader program to include teens from all Toledo Public Schools
high schools. Iafelice has also overseen the growth of two popular TMA programs, the TMA Block Party and
The Great Art Escape, which together brought more than 22,000 people to the Museum last year.
Accompanying Toledo Museum of Art’s major exhibition featuring more than 150 works of art in a wide range
of media, the catalog for Life Is a Highway: Art and American Car Culture is an inclusive, historical
overview of artists engaged in themes related to the car and its impact on American culture. Curator
Robin Reisenfeld analyzes how artists spanning the 20th century have examined the mythic status of the
car across social, cultural, aesthetic, environmental and industrial dimensions with images that both
celebrate and critique its legacy. Arts writer Eleanor Heartney also looks at contemporary global
artists using automobile culture to address issues of identity, gender, politics and technology.
The National Museum of the Great Lakes 2019 Annual Fund Campaign highlights the organization’s
accomplishments and the upcoming celebration of their 75th anniversary. Filled with images that tell
stories through snapshots of life at the museum, the campaign’s primary message to donors is “whatever
your story, whatever your Great Lakes experience – the National Museum of the Great Lakes is dedicated
to preserving it.”
Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario: A Journey of Discovery highlights the story of shipwreck discoveries in Lake
Ontario for the last 30 years in over 180 pages. Written by long-time collaborator Jim Kennard, it was
coordinated and published by the National Museum of the Great Lakes with all proceeds from the sale of
the book donated to NMGL
These winners will be recognized during the Annual OMA Awards Program Ceremony, which will take place
June 21 at 7 p.m., as the kick-off event for the 2020 Ohio Museums Association Virtual Conference. More
information is available at https://www.ohiomuseums.org/.
