Sheboygan North art teacher Frank Juarez, JMK Art Preserve win awards

SHEBOYGAN – Sheboygan North High School art teacher Frank Juárez and John Michael Kohler Art Preserve are recipients of Wisconsin Visual Art Achievement Awards.

Both will be honored April 30 at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.

The awards are given biennially to individuals and organizations that enrich the visual arts in the state.

Juárez will be recognized in the Educator (K-12) category.

John Michael Kohler Art Preserve will be recognized in the Exhibition category.

Other award recipients include Jack Damer and Freida High Wasikhongo Tesfagiorgis for Legacy (Lifetime Achievement); Leslie Vansen, Peck School of the Arts, UW-Milwaukee, for Educator (College or University); Karin Wolf for Community Arts Advocate; Debra Brehmer for Arts Writing; and Rae Minoka Skenandore (Yehsani>saks) for Emerging Artist.

Here’s more about the local winners:

Frank Juárez

Frank Juárez is an award-winning art educator, artist, author, publisher and former gallery director. He has two decades of art education and arts management experience organizing local and regional art exhibitions, community art events, and facilitating professional development workshops for artists.

Frank Juarez

He is involved in the Wisconsin Art Education Association and the National Art Education Association. He has presented numerous lectures at local universities, colleges, galleries and artist groups on Professional Practices for Artists: Business of Art. He is the founder of two projects focused on contemporary art and art education: the Midwest Artist Studios and the 365 Artists 365 Days Project.

He was awarded the 2015 Wisconsin Art Education Association Teacher of the Year. In 2016, he was awarded the 2016 National Art Education Association Wisconsin Art Educator of the Year. In 2018, he was elected to serve on the National Art Education Foundation Board of Trustees and received the 2018 Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Teacher Fellows Award. In 2019, he was named was National Secondary Art Educator of the Year.

Juárez is the Art Department chairman at Sheboygan North High School, contributing editor of SchoolArts Magazine and publisher of Artdose Magazine.

John Michael Kohler Art Preserve

The entrance to the John Michael Kohler Art Center's Arts Preserve, as seen, Monday, June 7, 2021, in Sheboygan, Wis.

The John Michael Kohler Art Preserve is an experimental space holding the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s world-renowned collection of more than 30 artist-built environments. It showcases the arts center’s dedication to this genre and embodies the collective passion, knowledge and dedication of the staff and many collaborators who have overseen decades of exhibitions, programming, research and conservation related to this multifaceted field of art-making.