The quality of those who won found its proof in the test of those who didn't.

I'm talking about Monday night's 2008 Hamilton Arts Awards. And when you have also-ran nominees (lifetime achievement) like Shirley Elford (the pride of Hamilton glass-making), Helen Beswick (potter extraordinaire), and the late Conrad Furey (his character and art live on), then you know you've got a deep field.

Same for music, visual art, theatre and dance where fine nominees such as Jim Witter, Ray Materick, Diana Panton, Edgar Breau, Laura Hollick, Steve Mazza, Les Drysdale and Willard Boudreau did not make the trip up to the podium (well, I can't say they lost). Any other year, any of them might have.

As it was, John Laing won in music, Stephen Newman in theatre, and Max Ratevossian in dance. (Kristina Stawiarski, Alyssa Stevenson and Lauren Kenel won youth awards.)

In his acceptance, visual arts award winner Tor Lukasik-Foss spoke to this very theme, the enrichment and multiplicity of Hamilton's arts profile.

He said we can no longer think of the arts and culture in this city as a kind of "spice to be sprinkled" over the real work that the city does.

Arts and culture are the real work that this city now does. For almost 30 years, Lukasik-Foss said, Hamilton has been struggling to recognize itself anew. It is no longer a steel city, a city that principally produces steel.

"We're a culture-producing city," said Lukasik-Foss.

The audience that heard him say it was a kind of mirror of the statement's truth. There were close to 300 people, maybe more, crowded into a room at the Hamilton Convention Centre. And they were buzzing. The awards event keeps growing; a few years ago categories had to be added to reflect the spike and diversity in the arts and culture sector.

Lukasik-Foss said the city's artists are not only stepping up, in terms of number and activity, to fill gaps left by the passing of other traditional faces of Hamilton, but they are also making art that is very much of this city, distinctive to it, unlike the art of any other place, in ways that are often hard to define.

It is the arts sector, said Lukasik-Foss, that is saving the city from "succumbing to the blandness which afflicts so many of the cities that ring Toronto."

The last word went to Gary Santucci, who, with his partner Barbara Milne, won the lifetime achievement award.

Santucci and Milne run The Pearl Company, at 16 Steven St., a centre for art exhibitions, theatre productions, concerts and more. It is also the starting point for the Art Bus, which takes passengers from gallery to gallery on the first and second Fridays of each month (incorrectly stated in yesterday's edition as the second and third Fridays -- my fault.)

The Pearl Company has been working hard to get the city to rezone so that its activities, particularly its theatrical gatherings, are no longer nonconforming uses.

Santucci, in his remarks, threaded between description and wishfulness. He said, "Mayor Fred has agreed to be a mayor for the arts." And he playfully challenged him to drive the Art Bus, and one gathered he meant it in more ways than one.

"This city is us," said Santucci. "Let's push the city's bureaucracy to catch up with the changes that are happening around it, to release the creativity we have here."

The event (put on by the City and its culture department through the Arts Advisory Commission) was a joyful affirmation of the arts. And it is genuinely moving to see people who have devoted their lives to technically demanding and sometimes underappreciated art forms get recognized by their community and its leaders.

I'm thinking of dance teacher Max Ratevossian coming to the podium, kissing hands, and thanking people in his accented English in the most guileless display of gratitude an affection.

There is so much to be cynical about these days, but moments like that make you proud to be in Hamilton and proud of its artists.

jmahoney@thespec.com

905-526-3306