Award-winning artist Whitney Brock and community leader Nathaniel L. Bishop are this year’s recipients of the Perry F. Kendig Awards.
The awards, co-sponsored by Hollins University and Roanoke College, celebrate the people and organizations that support excellence in the arts in the greater Roanoke Valley region.
Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton and Roanoke College President Frank Shushok Jr. honored the 2024 winners during an Oct. 1 ceremony held at Hollins University’s Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center.
“This event is special for many reasons,” Hinton said. “It is an opportunity for Hollins and Roanoke to affirm the arts, our patrons, and leadership for the arts. Hollins and Roanoke were both founded in 1842 and have served the region for 180 years. This is a tangible way for us to cooperate and express our joint values of the importance of the arts and community.”
Shushok added, “It is a privilege for Roanoke College to link arms once again with our friends at Hollins University to present the Kendig Awards in honor of Roanoke’s seventh president, Dr. Perry F. Kendig. These awards shine a light on the tremendous creative talents and cultural programs and resources throughout our region.”
Hinton and Shushok presented Brock with the Individual Artist Award. Brock’s paintings are in many private collections worldwide. She teaches art and is a member of the Oil Painters of America, International Guild of Realism, and Portrait Society of America.
“Whitney participated in the City of Roanoke and Grandin Village Natural Foods Co-Op collaboration called Walls That Unite,” Hinton said. “Her painting, Hope, is a celebration of the wonder and awe that children bring to our lives and how these gifts inspire the best in our community and engender faith in the future.”
Brock’s latest endeavor is: A Thread Through Roanoke: Celebrating Contemporary Traditional Portraits of the People that Make Roanoke Matter. “Whitney has identified 10 individuals in the Roanoke community with whom she is spending the year, bringing their spirits alive in large portraits,” Hinton explained.
Bishop is the recipient of this year’s Individual or Business Arts Supporter Award. Hinton described him as “a distinguished and dynamic leader who elevates the arts and cultural initiatives across the Roanoke Valley as well as education and health care.”
Bishop, who retired this summer as the senior associate dean for diversity, inclusion, and student vitality at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, led the creation of the Henrietta Lacks statue in downtown Roanoke to commemorate the African American woman from Roanoke whose cancer cells are the source of the first immortalized human cell line in medical research. He has successfully advocated for historic designation of sites significant to Roanoke’s Black community and organized film screenings to stimulate cross-cultural conversation and understanding. Bishop has also served as a leader on the boards of Mill Mountain Theatre and the Taubman Museum of Art.
“Being a trailblazer has become Dr. Bishop’s gift to our community,” Hinton said.
This year marks the 39th anniversary of the Kendig Awards and the 12th year that Hollins and Roanoke College have partnered to present them. The awards highlight the vital and important role that the arts play in the economic development, education, and cultural identity of Virginia’s Blue Ridge.
-The Salem Times-Register
