COEUR d’ALENE — Art’s not just painting, it’s pirate ships and skyscrapers.

It’s a belted opera note, and a paper cannon ball from that ship made out of cardboard.

Art can be everywhere, even a mouse, evolving as its muse is passed from one generation to the next.

The 2010 Mayor’s Awards in the Arts is a perfect reminder of that.

“I don’t think I should even be getting the award,” said Yvonne Benzinger, who won the Education in Arts award

for directing Summer Arts Program for Youth, the art camp that allows hundreds of kids to open their creative minds. “The teachers should. We wouldn’t have this program if it weren’t for them, so I accept this award for them.”

Every summer for 11 years, 150 kids crash down on the Harding Family Center to take a wide-ranging course load of hands-on activities led by around a dozen experienced teachers. Sure, they have painting classes, but students can learn about jewelry glass, cooking, magic, clay and building old-school battleships from scratch.

“The boys love it,” Benzinger said of the last one.

The four winners sharing three categories will each receive their awards at 6 p.m. Thursday at The Coeur d’Alene Resort. Presented by the Coeur d’Alene Arts Commission and the city, they recognize and encourage excellence in the arts and to stimulate and support awareness throughout town.

This year’s winners cover every nook and cranny in which art can fall.

“Opera isn’t just instrumental music, it isn’t just voices, it’s the artistic concept of the state: It’s drama, it’s theater, opera hits us on all levels,” said Len Mattei, who won the Support of the Arts category. “It just knocks me out.”

But Mattei didn’t win her award so much for her role as a board member of Opera Coeur d’Alene, but for the work she did beginning Kids Draw Architecture.

In its first year, the program pairs aspiring architects with the real deal, and the two go around downtown drawing the Lake City’s buildings.

The kids’ drawings are on display on the lower level of the Coeur d’Alene Public Library.

Not that opera singing went unrecognized.

Max Mendez won Excellence in the Arts for his work performing and directing in a wide range of singing and stage productions. Mendez has performed with Opera Plus, at the Northwest Bach Festival, Spokane Opera, Opera Idaho, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera and Opera Pacific, and has sung with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra.

“For me it’s a great honor. I guess I would say I’m very touched by my colleagues and by the community embracing me,” said Mendez, director of choirs and chair of Communications, Fine Arts and Humanities at North Idaho College. “It’s rewarding in many ways just doing what I do; in many ways that’s enough, but it’s nice to be recognized.”

Also receiving the Excellence in Arts award is Susan Nipp, author and creator of Coeur d’Alene’s now famous Mudgie and Millie.

“She put Coeur d’Alene on the map,” said Tami Smith, of the Coeur d’Alene Arts Commission, on the honors Nipp has received, not only for the moose and the mouse, but for her worldwide ‘Wee Sing’ series of books filled with favorite children’s songs.

But Nipp, who called the award an honor, said the statues of Mudgie and Millie are especially gratifying. The local artist gets to see the parents and children enjoying them up close and personal, as opposed to the sing along books that the teachers use inside their classrooms.

“I really get to enjoy the children and parents’ enjoyment, that has part has been fun,” Nipp said.

RSVP: 666-5754 or amyf@cdaid.org