The Milley Awards Executive Committee and the City of Mill Valley proudly announce the five honorees for the 2025 Creative Achievement Award—The Milley. They are Jerry Harrison, Irene Belknap, Joyce Kleiner, Jeff Brown, and Jim Welte.
These Mill Valley residents with distinguished accomplishments in the arts and service to the community will be honored at the 34th Milley Awards dinner on Sunday, October 26, 2025, at the Mill Valley Community Center. Photos by Daniel Patrick.
The 2025 Milley Awards Are Fast Approaching!
The celebrated composer and lyricist Rita Abrams will emcee this year’s Milley Awards for Creative Achievement, October 26th at the Mill Valley Community Center. A gala dinner and program will begin with appetizers by Paseo Bistro chef Angélica Duarte and complimentary wine from Bay Area vintners, followed by a lavish buffet dinner by Ghiringhelli Catering. The award presentations will culminate with a performance by celebrated musician Jerry Harrison, this year’s Milley honoree for musical arts. Tickets ($100) go on sale September 7 at milleyawards.org.
Harrison is one of five honorees who will receive a Milley, a bronze statuette designed by the late Sausalito artist John Libberton. The others are Joyce Kleiner for Literary Arts, Jeff Brown for Performing Arts, Irene Belknap for Visual Arts, and Jim Welte for Contributions to the Arts Community. The Milley awardees are chosen by a changing panel of five judges. The semi-annual Vera Schultz Award, chosen by the Milley Executive Committee and named for the famed Marin County Supervisor, will be presented to Donna Seager and Suzanne Gray of Seager Gray Gallery, in honor of their outstanding support of artists and the arts.
Jerry Harrison, admired for his work as a musician and a music producer, embodies the very nature of the spirit of the Milley Awards. The keyboardist and guitarist is a creator, collaborator and entrepreneur who has made an impact both locally and globally.
Journalist Joyce Kleiner’s two books and countless articles about Mill Valley lift layers of history to reveal much about the known and unknown men, women and events that have shaped our special town.
Jeff Brown’s talent, creativity, enthusiasm and generous nature are legendary in Tamalpais Valley. He has been involved in creative projects that delight the community, including =The Rhubarb Revue, an annual comedy revue that raises funds for the Tam Valley Improvement Club; and Creekside Fridays, a nine-week free concert series.
Irene Belknap is a gifted painter whose lush, surreal canvases of women, men and animals in motion are both lucid and dreamlike, Her work has a presence that embraces and transports the viewer.
Jim Welte, co-founder of the Mill Valley Music Festival, contributes in multiple ways to our community’s creative life. As an editor and Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, Jim is a Mill Valley booster, spreading the word about local artists and creative events.
The five Milley honorees are chosen by a changing panel of judges. This year’s jury was Maria Hoppe, Michael Vogel, Paul Liberatore, Steve McNamara and Zachary Gilmore.
The semi-annual Vera Schultz Awardee, created in 2002 to honor organizations and businesses, is selected by the Milley Executive Committee. Seager Gray Gallery, an excellent art gallery in downtown Mill Valley from 2011 until early 2025, exhibited high-quality art and generously supported other local arts organizations. Questions about the event may be texted to 415-702-5449.
In addition to the five Milley honorees, the semi-annual Vera Schultz Award will be presented to Seager Gray Gallery for outstanding support of artists and the arts.
About the Honorees
Jerry Harrison – Achievement in the Musical Arts
Admired for his work as a musician and a music producer, Mill Valley resident Jerry Harrison embodies the very nature of the spirit of the Milley Awards. He is a creator, collaborator, and entrepreneur who has made an impact both locally and globally. Jerry was a member of the bands Modern Lovers and Talking Heads, which were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. A keyboardist and guitarist, Jerry has released solo albums of his own and has produced some of rock and roll’s best-known bands.
Irene Belknap – Achievement in the Visual Arts
Irene Belknap has been an integral member of the Mill Valley arts community for over fifty years. A gifted painter whose lush, surreal canvases of women, men, and animals in motion are both lucid and dreamlike, Irene’s work has a presence that embraces and transports the viewer. Like hieroglyphs, the paintings are accompanied by words and written characters. The titles of her series, such as “String Theory” and “Dressed in Words,” are plays on words and explorations of themes. She regularly shows at O’Hanlon
Joyce Kleiner – Achievement in the Literary Arts
Journalist Joyce Kleiner is the author of two books and countless articles about Mill Valley, her hometown since 1995. A meticulous researcher, she loves to lift layers of history to reveal much about the known and unknown men, women, and events that have shaped our special place. Her books, Legendary Locals of Mill Valley (2014) profiled more than a hundred movers and shakers, and Kind of Close to Heaven (2021), a compendium of her columns in the Mill Valley Herald, educated and informed readers. Joyce is currently writing vignettes for MV Connect, the City of Mill Valley’s primary online vehicle to communicate to its citizenry.
Jeff Brown – Achievement in the Performing Arts
Jeff Brown has a larger-than-life presence in the Tamalpais Valley Community Services District. For the past seven years, the Mill Valley resident has been author, director, and technical designer of The Rhubarb Revue, an annual comedy revue that raises funds for the Tam Valley Improvement Club. For six of those years he also has worked on the annual Tam Valley Murder Mystery—directing, building sets, handling props and lights, acting, even developing special effects.During the summers he provides technical assistance for the Tam Valley community’s Creekside Fridays, a nine-week free concert series; during Halloween, he creates ingenious technical illusions for the community’s Haunted House. These are just some of his projects. Jeff’s talent, creativity, enthusiasm, and generous nature are legendary in Tamalpais Valley.
Jim Welte – Contributions to the Arts Community
Through prodigious storytelling skills and as co-founder of the Mill Valley Music Festival, Mill Valley Chamber Executive Director Jim Welte contributes in multiple ways to our community’s creative life. In 2010 as newspapers languished, he launched and managed Mill Valley Patch, a news and information site, covering the local community with depth and accuracy. As longtime editor of the Enjoy Mill Valley blog, website, and newsletter, Jim shines a bright light on artists, arts events, iconic institutions, and nonprofits, and the City’s Arts Commission and Library. He has a discerning eye for what’s important and is highly responsive to requests from artists, event organizers, and organizations wishing to inform the community of their activities. In these and many other ways, Jim is a vital contributor to Mill Valley arts.
Vera Schultz Award – Seager Gray Gallery
The Vera Schultz Award, bestowed by the Milley Executive Committee, was created in 2002 to honor the achievements of organizations that embody the late Marin County Supervisor Vera Schultz’s activism, leadership, courage, and vision. This year Seager Gray Gallery is honored. Donna Seager and Suzanne Gray ran their art gallery in downtown Mill Valley from 2011 until early this year. It was for both a satisfying creative endeavor. In their shows the whole was greater than the sum of its parts and a gallery was not just a shop that sold wares, but a space to provide an experience of art that enlightened and enriched the community. Suzanne and Donna will each receive a hand-calligraphed artwork by East Bay calligrapher Jody Meese.
Additional Information on the Milleys 2025:
The Milley Award is a bronze statuette created by the late sculptor John Libberton of Sausalito. The event is produced by a volunteer committee under the auspices of the Mill Valley Arts Commission. 2025 Executive Committee members are Abby Wasserman, Queenie Taylor, Daniel Patrick, Rosemary MacConnell, Audrey Donaldson, Roy Forest, Larry “the Hat” Lautzker, Dana Kelly, and Jackie La Lanne. The Milley honorees are selected by a changing panel of judges from the community.
Tickets for the 2025 Milley Awards are $100. The entry includes appetizers, complimentary wine and other beverages, a catered buffet dinner, and the awards program, which will feature videos, speeches, and a live musical performance. Tickets will go on sale September 7, 2025, through the website www.milleyawards.org.
The event is selling fast but there some tickets are still available. Go to www.milleyawards.org.
