Nickel Plate Arts hosted its sixth annual anniversary party with the third edition of the Nickel Plate Arts Awards to celebrate the area’s burgeoning arts scene and recognize some of the community’s most valuable artists and arts advocates.
Jamie Follis, a teacher at Hamilton Southeastern High School, was named Arts Educator of the Year. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Stewart / Stewart Imagery)
Among the list of honorees, Hamilton Southeastern High School teacher Jamie Follis was named “Arts Educator of the Year.” The “Arts Educator of the Year” award is a new category this year, prompted by Nickel Plate Arts’ identification of outstanding educators in local schools.
For 20 years, Follis has been educating and creating a passion in students for film by teaching an after-school film studies course. In 2013, he decided to use his experience in filmmaking to create Olio Road Productions, a fully-functioning film group that seeks to connect the most talented students at HSE and turn the school into a film studio. Follis guides and oversees the students as they create original, feature-length films. Follis says the students create every aspect of the project, including writing, producing, directing, acting, filming, lighting and editing.
In addition to teaching at Hamilton Southeastern, Follis works as a professional sculptor, selling his work at art gallery shows and on a commission basis. Follis has also worked as a producer and in production design for Disney/Lucasfilm, Supernatural, Seth Meyers, Patton Oswalt and Stephen Colbert. Most recently, Follis was the art director for The Storyteller, which won the Audience Award at the 2018 Heartland Film Festival.
Follis says he will proudly display his award, made from copper, wood and stained glass by DeMaris Gaunt of Mud Horse Art, a former Fishers resident. Each Nickel Plate Arts’ nominee received a gift of a locally-made item. Follis was also given a hand-turned wooden pen made by Fishers resident Chris Hayes of AskCheese Woodworks.