The results are in, and we're proud to present the recipients of Phoenix New Times' 2012 Big Brain Awards.

Photos by Jamie Peachey and Claire Lawton

The winners in five categories were announced earlier tonight at New Times' Big Brain reception, and each received $500.

Awards and recipients after the jump ...

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch we've profiled each finalist in visual art, performing art, design, fashion, and culinary art. 

(Note: As of the writing of this post, tickets to the Big Brain celebration, Artopia, have sold out.)

Check out their work in the video above and this slideshow, and read more about each after the jump ...

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Aaron Kimberlin

Photos by Jamie Peachey and Jason & Anna Photography

Aaron Kimberlin grew up in Chandler, graduated from Arizona State with a design degree, then took off for Chicago to get a Master's in Urban Planning.

"I wanted to learn everything I could about a city," he explains. He's home now and landed a nice day job: Assistant Director of PURL, ASU's Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory, where -- among other things -- he's heading up the first-ever Phoenix Urban Design Week, starting April 9.

So are Phoenix and Chicago anything alike?

Not at all, Kimberlin admits.

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Sweet Salvage

Photos by Jamie Peachey

In Phoenix, people are always talking about building community and how impossible it is to bring folks together, but Kim Rawlins and Katie Hibbs have the secret.

Junk.

Not just any junk -- we're not talking about your average yard sale or even your favorite thrift store on a really good day. High quality junk: industrial metal racks, globes, cloches and cake plates and card catalogs. The stuff you drool over on Pinterest, the stuff Pottery Barn knocks off. The really good junk.

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Dulce Juarez

Photos by Jamie Peachey and courtesy of Dulce Juarez

Dulce Juarez is looking around Fair Trade Coffee in downtown Phoenix and pointing out things she could use in an impromtu performance.

"See that chair, this plant, your jacket, that lamp, that man's tie?" she says. "I could use all of those things ... It's a matter of making something out of nothing."

The 25-year-old performer, activist, and teacher says the word for this style is Rasquache, which is a Spanish term embraced by the Chincano art movement and used to describe an artwork or artist who accepts and deals with their own material limitations.

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Victor Moreno

photo by Claire Lawton, Art by Victor Moreno

Victor Moreno remembers sneaking across the street from his parents' house outside of Los Angeles to rent as many B-list movies as he could get his hands on. He saved his money and rented two or three at a time, each for 50 to 75 cents. In a few years, he'd gone through the video rental shop's inventory.

Moreno's a proud film buff and can easily talk shop about what's coming out next week as well as what was coming out of Japan in the late '70s. When he moved to Phoenix, he renamed half of its destinations after movie and television references (Liberty Market is Mayberry; Paradise Valley is 90210).

And when he finally put his movie obsession together with his love for design, he says it all kind of clicked. 

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Ashley Eaton

Photos by Jamie Peachey

​We all know about  food trucks. But a fashion trailer? Yep. Ashley Eaton runs her vintage boutique Merry May Shoppe out of a vintage 1961 Shasta Airflyte.

Indeed, the concept was born at a panel discussion about owning and operating food trucks, morphed to fit Eaton's interests, which run more to hot dresses than hot dogs. "It's kind of brilliant," she says of businesses on wheels. "I thought, 'Well, I'm going to start a vintage shop.'"

Pulling pieces from her own stash of clothing, Eaton had plenty to launch her store. The only thing missing was the venue.

She drew inspiration from Canadian mobile shops she'd spotted on blogs (some of which have gone on to open brick and mortar locations), and the trailer scenes in Austin, Texas and Bisbee, Arizona. Voilà, Merry May Shoppe was born.

Well, nearly.

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Thomas Greyeyes

Photo by Claire Lawton, Art by Thomas Greyeyes

​After a long road-trip back from his hometown of Tsegi (about one hour north of Tuba City on the Navajo reservation), Thomas Greyeyes says he feels stretched.

The artist splits his time among Tsegi, visiting family and friends; San Carlos, where he teaches art at a community college; and Phoenix, where he says he makes artwork whenever and wherever he can.

Greyeyes, 22, explains that he's filled with experiences from his two cultures -- life on "the rez" and life in Phoenix couldn't be more different. But more often, he says, members of his generation in his community have found themselves straddling the line between cultures and trying to figure out just where they fit in. And in that confusion, he says, is where the art happens.

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: The Torch Theatre

Photos by Jamie Peachey

​Sitting in a meeting of the board members of local longform improv's The Torch Theatre is like being at a tennis match. This group is quick, funny, and has an almost superhuman ability to bounce ideas, comments, and the occasional joke off the others' dangling punctuation marks.  

Given, this is what these people do. They're good.

The board includes members Bill Binder, Jose Gonzalez, Jacque Arend, Sam Haldiman, Nina Miller, Mack Duncan, Shane Shannon, and Tommy Schaeffer. There's no one leader or head decision-maker -- the group formed in 2007 when local performance troupes Apollo 12, Galapagos, Remainders, Mail Order Bride, Light Rail Pirates, Phoenix Neutrino Project, and Dangerville came together under one umbrella to offer classes and workshops for the community and to perform on a regular basis.

More >>

You submitted nominations for awards given to the Valley's emerging creatives and the results are in. Introducing our Big Brain 2012 Finalists.

Leading up to the Big Brain Award awards announcement and celebration on April 7, Chow Bella and Jackalope Ranch will introduce the finalists.

Up today: Jon Ashcroft

Photos by Claire Lawton

​Long before Jon Ashcroft moved to Phoenix, landed a gig at Fender, and then quit to do design work for a regional church, he started designing event fliers for his friends' bands in high school.

The 27-year-old designer grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. After high school, he enrolled at New Mexico State University. He thought he'd study business. A few classes in, he was miserable.

He liked his art history class, so he switched to the school's photography and design program, where he says he developed an eye for clean lines and good composition - two elements that are at the core of everything he designs now.

More >>