The Charlottesville Waldorf Foundation is once again honoring a select group of individuals, foundations and corporations for their extraordinary environmental efforts in the third annual Commonwealth Environmental Leadership Awards.

This year's event, held on October 17 at Balmullo Farm in Earlysville, will include a gala dinner followed by the presentation of awards that spotlight those in our community and in our state who have consistently gone above and beyond as it relates to resource conservation and environmental preservation.

"Each year we have been amazed by the extraordinary efforts of all of our nominees," said Charlottesville Waldorf Foundation Chair Sarah Tremaine. "We are honored to put a well-deserved spotlight on these people and organizations, and hope that their examples will provide ideas and inspiration to others throughout the state on how they too can make positive change happen."

The CELA event has, in a few short years, become one of the highlights of the environmental event calendar and has honored a wide range of recipients in a variety of categories. Last year's winners included:

Corporate Citizenship	Nature Neutral
Individual – Walk the Walk	Doug Lowe
Land Use and Development	Qroe Farm Preservation Development
Commercial Building	Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc.
Painting Towards Architecture	Katie Swenson
Smart Agriculture	Polyface Farm
Green Educator	Hank Shugart

Once again this year, the awards showcased the Charlottesville Waldorf Foundation's unique appreciation of the inherent connections between art, education and the environment, which is a cornerstone of the Waldorf educational philosophy. Each award is commissioned from a local artisan and custom designed to fit the individual recipient. As a result, winners leave not with a plaque or trophy, but with an enduring symbol representing their commitment and accomplishments toward the shared goal of creating a better, greener world.

2007 CELA Winners

Development and Land Use: RiverBluff

The 22-home RiverBluff neighborhood is one of the Charlottesville area's premier conservation communities, connecting residents to their natural surroundings in new and profound ways while protecting the site's important riparian roots.

The homes at RiverBluff are clustered along the ridge of the hill, creating a compact, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood that leaves the majority of the site's 19-acres as common land.

The innovative and integrated storm water management at RiverBluff is designed to cleanse and filter storm water just like a natural ecosystem. This approach turns storm water, which could under conventional circumstances be a liability, into a visible, valuable and enjoyable community resource.

Complementing the storm water system at RiverBluff is the use of green roofs, which incorporate a root barrier, water retention system and waterproofing, all in a single membrane.

Corporate Citizenship: Alt Energy

Altenergy is quickly becoming Central Virginia's leading resource for the creation of energy efficient buildings. Dedicated to reducing our reliance on non-renewable energy, the company offers consultation and installation of the very latest in alternative energy technologies. Altenergy guides homeowners through the entire process of harnessing and utilizing other sources of energy, working closely with them to invest in a variety of ways to cut back on energy consumption by employing strategies including passive solar design.

Virginia is among the states providing the least incentive to produce clean power. This makes Altenergy's mission of education even more important. And it makes its consulting services (including highlighting financial incentives) vital to those looking to make clean energy an affordable option for Virginia homeowners.

Commercial Building: Crescent Resources, LLC (One and Two Potomac Yard)

One and Two Potomac Yard, located in Crystal City, Virginia, is one of the first green office projects in the Washington, D.C. area. Both buildings achieved the prestigious LEED Gold ratings from the U.S. Green Building Council, a rating earned by only one other commercial building in Virginia.

The two twelve-story buildings, which include office and retail space and a fitness center, feature a comprehensive green approach focused on the building as well as the behaviors of the people in them.

Underground parking facilities help reduce the heat-island effect while high emissivity Energy Star ® roofing reduces both the heat-island effect and internal heat loads. The buildings were designed to use 20% less energy (by cost) than comparable buildings. The EPA, which has office space there, purchased 100% green power for its first year of tenancy.

During the construction of the buildings materials were selected whenever possible for their recycled content, regional origin and low chemical emissions. A construction waste management plan kept more than 70% of construction waste out of the landfill.

The building is operated using green housekeeping practices and an integrated pest management plan.

Alternate transportation is promoted to all occupants through features like the project's indoor bicycle storage and shower and changing facilities. Occupants are also continually encouraged to learn about the buildings' green features though a specially-designed user-education program.

Painting Towards Architecture: Sanda Iliescu

Sanda Iliescu is an internationally-acclaimed artist, architect, writer and educator working regularly in the media of drawing, painting and collage. Born in Bucharest, Romania, Iliescu emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 along with her mother, who was a political refugee.

She received her graduate education at Columbia University and Princeton, where she earned a Master of Architecture degree in 1986. Ms. Iliescu's artworks have been exhibited in the United States and Europe, and she has earned awards including The Rome Prize and The Distinguished Artist Award of the NJ State Council of the Arts. She has taught at Princeton and SUNY, and currently holds a joint appointment in art and architecture at the University of Virginia, where she teaches design and painting and drawing studios.

Ms. Iliescu's interest in larger scale wall drawings and public art, as well as her well documented social conscience, was captured in her recent project, 211 WORDS. In it, 271 people participated in painting the text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on the 70-foot-long parapets of a Charlottesville Bridge. Ms. Iliescu designed the project in response to a rash of sexist and racist hate acts on the university campus. Sanda Iliescu is also a highly-respected essayist who regularly focuses on the inherent conflicts between social-political issues and the ideas of beauty, creativity and visual imagination. She edited and contributed two chapters to a forthcoming volume with the University of Virginia Press, The Hand and the Soul: Ethics and Aesthetics in Architecture and Art. She is currently working on a single-author book titled About Drawings: Meditations on How and Why We Draw. She lives and works in Charlottesville with her husband, Paul Lipkowitz and their son Gabriel.

Educator: Ernie Reed

Ernie Reed is the Director and co-founder of the Living Education Center for Ecology and the Arts, a private high school in Charlottesville. He has served as the school's Academic Director for 15 years while teaching a wide range of subjects. One of the highlights of his tenure there has been the school's adoption of Schenck's Branch. The students' efforts to clean and monitor the stream have been instrumental in raising public awareness about the polluted stream.

Mr. Reed's commitment to and passion for the environment extends far beyond his life as a teacher. He continues to serve a larger population in a variety of ways. He has served the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club as Environmental Education Chair, Public Lands Chair and At-Large Delegate to the Executive Committee. He was the "Deep Ecology" member of the Working Group for the Land and Resource Management Plan for the George Washington National Forest. Mr. Reed also lends his time to Heartwood, a coalition of over 50 grassroots forest protection groups in the central and eastern US.

Smart Agriculture: Lynchburg Grows

In 2005, the people behind Lynchburg Grows used a single, forsaken piece of land to launch an effort that touches thousands of lives each year. Out of a single 6.5 acre garden left for ruin, this organization showed an entire community the true power and potential of the land on which we all live. Today Lynchburg Grows includes booming organic gardens as well as six community gardens that support its inspiring and innovative "Roots and Shoots" program. This program expands existing children's gardening programs at local schools and incorporates hands-on urban agriculture and a food systems and nutrition education curriculum. The organization also provides food for the homeless through the advocacy organization The Daily Bread. In addition, it created and continues to run a vocational program for disabled and low-income individuals to create self-reliance and food security through urban agriculture.

Lynchburg Grows is well on its way to becoming the Mid-Atlantic's biggest producer of organic produce. It currently supports a CSA, sells at the city market and regularly supplies many Lynchburg restaurants.

Individual: Kristel Riddervold

When it comes to sustainable living, Kristel Riddervold teaches by example. As the Environmental Administrator for the City of Charlottesville, she led a call for intense training of city employees and was a leader of the project to build the acclaimed LEED-certified transit center. Ms. Riddervold presented at the National Environmental Partnership Summit and she also helps students and volunteers to get involved in sustainability projects. She is the chair of the Virginia EMS Association. Her personal life reflects her total commitment to sustainability as she actively seeks out local, sustainable foods, drives a hybrid car and works regularly to make her own home as green as it can possibly be.

Artists

John Grant has pursued the visual arts for over thirty years as a photographer, graphic designer and publisher of fine art books and calendars. His work is currently represented world-wide by Getty Images, Inc. and he is represented in Washington, D.C. by Ewing Gallery. He maintains a studio at The McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville.

 

 

 

NiNi Baeckstrom grew up in Sweden where she learned various craft skills and developed a passion to work with her hands. She has lived and worked as a sculptor in Charlottesville, Virginia, the past 15 years. NiNi sees the Waldorf school as "a catalyst for change and a higher consciousness, affecting everybody it touches". She has similar aspirations in her art, translating materials such as cement, copper and glass in to forms that will inspire the viewer to look further and deeper.

 

 

Sanda Iliescu is an internationally-acclaimed artist, architect, writer and educator working regularly in the media of drawing, painting and collage. Born in Bucharest, Romania, Iliescu emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 along with her mother, who was a political refugee. Ms. Iliescu's artworks have been exhibited in the United States and Europe, and she has earned numerous awards She currently holds a joint appointment in art and architecture at the University of Virginia, where she teaches design and painting and drawing studios. Ms. Iliescu's interest in larger scale wall drawings and public art, as well as her well documented social conscience, was captured in her recent project, 211 WORDS. In it, 271 people participated in painting the text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on the 70-foot-long parapets of a Charlottesville Bridge. Ms. Iliescu designed the project in response to a rash of sexist and racist hate acts on the University campus.

The subjects of Lara Gastinger's art come from the natural world and reveals detailed evidence of change, decay, and processes that occur in nature. She finds great inspiration in a carrot that has gone to flower, a broken seed pod, twisted roots or insect damage to a leaf. She strives to make a plant portrait in such a way that it reveals its character and uniqueness. Currently, she is the chief illustrator for the Flora of Virginia Project. This botanical reference manual that will contain 1500 original illustrations by Ms. Gastinger. In February , she exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society garden show in London where she was awarded with the highest honor of a gold medal for her botanical art.

In her paintings, Robin Braun tries to portray the storm and the tranquility that comes after the storm, finding these aspects of nature both beautiful and terrifying. Braun feels strongly that nature is being pushed and tested by people and pollution. "A project such as the Greenest School sets an example for a whole new generation."

 

 

Charlottesville-based artist Michael Fitts has been using oil paint on reclaimed scrap metal for ten years. He has shown in New York, Washington D.C., Bethesda, Maryland, Richmond, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He is an associate member of the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville and is represented in the Washington D.C. metro area by the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda.

 

 

For twenty-five years, Nancy Bass has been painting the rural land that surrounds her home, a cattle farm in Central Virginia. She finds inspiration in the open pastures and rolling skyline of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her passion for color and love of animals has led to oil paintings that combine depictions of her cows with the gentle beauty of the surrounding farmland. By varying her palette and the time of day she is able to convey the numerous changes in mood that a single landscape is able to express. Nancy Bass's paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States.

Cynthia Burke has been interpreting the natural world in her paintings for many years. Her lush oils of birds and animals often have a Medieval feel to them, suffused with opulent fabrics, colors and patterns. She says "I pass the building site (of the Greenest School in America) every morning on my way to the studio. It gives me great pleasure to be able to contribute in this small way. The project is not only a great example to the surrounding community but will surely influence the environmental attitudes of the many students who will attend it."