By Jennifer J.H. Pierce

In the world of cultural arts, sharing and teaching are just as important as the actual artwork itself. Often, the artist, the conduit and the teacher are three different people who converge to make an impact.  

South Florida is filled with creative people, many of whom gather at ArtServe, where anyone can exhibit their unique work, share their talents and learn new techniques. With sponsorship by OutClique Magazine, Seacoast Bank, Broward Health and FPL, ArtServe is presenting the 2024 annual Impact Awards to showcase how everyday people inspire the world through creative arts.  

“Our honorees this year have sparked great things by sharing, teaching, and giving others the space and tools to do the same,” ArtServe CEO Jason Hughes noted. 

Let’s meet ArtServe’s Impact Award Honorees of 2024! 

Passion and Insanity Are Close Cousins 

When beloved puppeteer Jim Hammond applied to the City of Fort Lauderdale for a permit to hold the first-ever “Day of the Dead” 15 years ago, they got a call from the Police Department the next day asking whether it was a protest, “ . . . or what?” 

The event, a playful spectacle honoring the Mexican tradition in which skeleton-costumed revelers animate dozens of giant puppets, went on to become an annual Fort Lauderdale favorite, partially because Hammond created it with help from hundreds of volunteers who invested themselves through their related papier-mâché classes at ArtServe.  

There, six-year-olds sat next to 96-year-olds learning ancient artistic techniques from Hammond to create the giant parade puppets, along with processional puppeteer skills they needed to participate. 

Fast forward to April 2023, when historic flooding demolished half of Hammond’s Day of the Dead puppets, a despairing Sun-Sentinel photograph of the damage led organizations like Riverwalk, South Florida Symphony, The Community Foundation of Broward and others to help them begin anew. 

“When someone is given a puppet, they feel free to let a little of their true selves out,” Hammond said.  “Puppets are metaphors for the masks we all wear in life. But really, we are all just puppeteers inside our own puppets.”

A National Hero Sat in a Restaurant Unrecognized 

Every time he would meet his friend, Ret. Lt. Col. Leo Gray, for lunch or dinner, Thaddeus Hamilton felt indignant as people walked right past without recognizing Gray as a World War II hero and one of the original Tuskegee Airmen—the first-ever African-American fighter pilots who paved the way for racial integration in America’s armed services. 

After Gray’s passing in 2016, Hamilton, who followed in Gray’s Air Force footsteps and later again at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, vowed to make sure the world would remember Gray, along with all the Tuskegee Airmen now long passed.  

To do it, as President of the Miami Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, he used his personal collection of Tuskegee-related artwork, along with donated sculptures, books, model planes and photographs to educate and inspire people of all ages and demographics to learn about the Tuskegee Airmen’s legacy. During an outreach event for the United Negro College Scholarship Fund Leadership Council at ArtServe, he met sculptor George Gadsden, who asked him to display his treasures there. 

“Back in the 1930s, they said Black people didn’t have the mental capacity to fly an airplane and they turned out to be the best pilots in the entire war,” Hamilton recalled. “The Tuskegee Airmen were called upon to escort large bombers to ensure they completed their missions and returned safely. They never lost a bomber to an enemy fighter plane.”

“I Remove Barriers to Learning” 

The numbers don’t lie. Something really great is happening at Dillard High School. 

Magnet Coordinator for Emerging Technology and Digital Entrepreneurship, Jessica Swanson, is proud of her role in creating and maintaining the school’s successful array of arts and technology programs like ballet, jazz, artificial intelligence and robotics, so kids don’t have to attend private school to get access to specialized education—a growing imperative in the workplace.  

Swanson, who supports Dillard’s digital arts program, makes sure arts, business and technology teachers have what they need to both structure their lessons and obtain resources necessary for providing the kind of robust education that will help students succeed and sustain themselves into adulthood. She communicates with both universities and employers to ensure Dillard’s courses and student experiences are aligned with what they expect. 

“All these things you don’t realize have anything to do with each other combine. That’s when greatness happens, Swanson added.  

Importantly, she holds students to their own choices and commitments, inviting them to break down their own personal barriers as they navigate the structured real-world experiences that are part of her programs. 

“That’s how we have so many girls achieving in STEM and computer science, for example,” she said. “If they’re worried they can’t achieve, we focus on getting them what they need to do it.”