Creative Leader Fitzpatrick Presented Commonwealth Award
 |
"The Commonwealth Award winners demonstrate that arts and culture are central to everything that makes Massachusetts such a special place," said MCC Executive Director Anita Walker. "We are proud to honor these individuals and organizations for their exceptional accomplishments and all that they have contributed to our state. Together, they tell a powerful story of the public value of the arts, humanities, and sciences."
The Commonwealth Awards shine a spotlight on the extraordinary contributions that arts and culture make to education, economic vitality, and quality of life in communities across Massachusetts. Held every two years, the Commonwealth Awards ceremony also brings together the Massachusetts nonprofit cultural sector to assert its value and make the case for public investment in its work.
Past winners include leading artists, writers and scholars such as Yo-Yo Ma and David McCullough; world-class institutions such as Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and the Peabody Essex Museum; and social innovators such as the Boston Cyberarts Festival and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation. Fitzpatrick's mother, Jane Fitzpatrick, is a past recipient of the award.
Fitzpatrick became chairman in January 2008 of the Berkshire Creative, a newly formed economic development and support organization serving Berkshire County. Working with director Helena Fruscio, Fitzpatrick has helped guide Berkshire Creative into a dynamic organization at the forefront of the creative economy development field.
Fitzpatrick's record of community service reaches from Boston to the Berkshires and beyond, and includes organizations such as the Berkshire Museum, Berkshire Natural Resources Council, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Hancock Shaker Village, IS183 Art School of the Berkshires, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporaray Art Foundation, and the Trustees of Reservations. Her philanthropic activity, as both a trustee of the Fitzpatrick family's High Meadow Foundation and as a private individual, continues to leave an indelible mark both within and outside the county and the state.
She is a second-generation hotelier whose family has owned the Red Lion Inn since 1968. For the last 18 years, she has overseen a hospitality business that includes the Red Lion, the Porches Inn at Mass MoCA, Elm Street Market and most recently the Wigwam Cabins. The inns have been commended by National Geographic Traveler for their commitment to sustainability, eco-conscious practices and support for the community — activities all stemming from Fitzpatrick's insistence that her businesses tread as lightly as possible on the Earth while helping sustain their neighbors in Berkshire County. Fitzpatrick also serves as the vice chairman of the Fitzpatrick Companies, parent company of Country Curtains and Housatonic Curtain Co.
Through her role as a community leader, businesswoman, creative individual and advocate, Fitzpatrick has brought creativity's role in the vitality of the region to the forefront of economic planning. She has set in place structures to leverage the culturally rich region's existing assets and fostered greater cohesion within the creative community. Thanks to her efforts, groundbreaking avenues of communication and collaboration between the traditional business and creative sectors now exist that will help ensure that the distinctive Berkshire Region will continue to grow, thrive and prosper.
Fitzpatrick is a graduate of Smith College. She is married to photographer Lincoln Russell, and has a son, Casey Rothstein-Fitzpatrick, and three stepchildren, Morgan Russell, Michael Rothstein and Sarah Eustis.
