Paul Tikkanen was a contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and photographer born in Ashtabula in 1926. He was a graduate of Ashtabula Harbor High School and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Tikkanen was a 1957 winner of the Cleveland Art Museum’s May Show for his painting “Chipped Crystal.” He married his wife Norma Stenberg Tikkanen in 1958; Norma was born in Saybrook, Ohio. Paul and Norma traveled extensively during their life together, visiting Mexico, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Paul studied, created, and showed art around the world, and worked in the United States as a draftsman, carpenter, boiler operator, sign painter, commercial artist, and portrait painter. He and Norma renovated the Old Ninevah School in Geneva, Ohio into an art studio, and he later established a studio on Lake Road. Paul was devoted to Norma, and was her primary caregiver at the end of her life.

Paul Tikkanen hoped to see visual arts flourish in our area, and wanted to encourage and promote both established and rising fine arts painters in Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania. To help realize that goal, he left an endowment to the Ashtabula Arts Center Foundation to establish a painting competition. This competition, the Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize, is held annually every October. Prizes will be given in two categories, abstract and realistic, awarding first place winners $15,000 and second place winners $6000. Honorable Mention prizes of $1200 may also be awarded at the discretion of the jurors. Acceptable media for entries include gouache, fresco, encaustic, ink (sumi-e), oil, acrylic, watercolor, alcohol inks, tempora, spray paint, airbrush, and mixed media painting.

ACCEPTED ARTISTS AND WORKS FOR 2026

1. Suzan Kraus “Let the Raucous Begin”
2. Clare Murray Adams “Moonlit Laundry”
3. Dennis Long “Beauty of Purple”
4. Elizabeth Emery “what’s next door”
5. Bruno Casiano “Organico Humano”
6. Charlotte Lees “Earth Panel #4”
7. Susan Squires “Mottola/becoming something else”
8. Phillip Buntin “Untitled”
9. Josh Chefitz “Future Me”
10. Justin Brennan “All I Want”
11. Sharon Dundee “PATIENCE”
12. David Kuntzman “Polaron III”
13. Charles Kiss “Milkweed Entanglement #3”
14. Ronald Bayuzick “Spring Reacher”
15. Rebecca Kaler “The Apple Tree”
16. Jill Bascom “Membrane”
17. Dana Oldfather Darling “Persistence of Being”
18. Brielle Giancola “Fly like I know you are”
19. David Heatwole “Playground of Shadows”
20. Mary White “The Lies We Tell Ourselves”
21. Edward Macie “Repose”
22. Ken Coon “Ohio Hollywood”
23. David Buttram “East Side Shelter”
24. James Jones “ Merry Go Round”
25. Thomas Rooney “Fire Hose”
26. Jim Kolaczko “WW2 Veteran Reunion Event Shared with Grandson”
27. Toby Griffiths “Parallel Earth Continuum”
28. John A Sargent III “PRESUMING NO AUDIENCE”
29. Katy Richards “February 26th”
30. Sarah Curry “Pour it on Thick”
31. Gabrielle Rossetti “The Mantis Prays for a Kitchen Renovation and her Husband is an Alcoholic Squirrel”
32. John Carreon “Sorrow”
33. Darius Steward “ Education as Protection, Scene 2”
34. Nicole Maye Luga “Mad Scientist”
35. Dennis Balogh “Big Sister”
36. Timothy Callaghan “Lost Nation (Convenient)”
37. Martha Shiverick “ In the Year 2025”
38. Rober Raack “ My Little Monsters”
39. Timothy Herron “Hough Library”
40. Joan Pogalies “Lauretta Dreams of…”
41. Mark Giangaspero “Keith I”
42. Maxwell Miller “The Burden of the Fates”
43. Tion Best “ The Story of Yummy”
44. Tim Buckett “Mobile Home”
45. Katrina Polhamus “ Virginia’s Garden”
46. Judy Takacs “Three Fates Cut Ties”
47. Elana Maraldo “ An Artist’s Anguish”