A family in the Washington area that has handmade Kennedy Center Honorees’ signature Rainbow-and-Gold medals for almost five decades has reportedly been cut off, the latest change in President Donald Trump’s ongoing transformation of the nation’s flagship Public Arts Institution.
James and Mila Baturin have made the medals designed by New York artist Ivan Chermayeff, since the first Kennedy Center -Honour’s ceremony was held in 1978.
Since then, the center’s distinctive prices, which contain three gold -plated medals on a rainbow ribbon necklace, have been largely gathered by hand at the family’s kitchen countertop in Bethesda, Maryland.
However, they learned earlier this month that the Kennedy Center would no longer work with them, as the Arts Center has reportedly contacted Jeweller Tiffany & Co. About designing a new medal.
“When the Kennedy Center looks against the future and embarks on a new chapter, we are switching to a new partnership for the creation of Honours Medallions,” reads a letter, dated August 6, seen by Washington Post.
“We suspected that something would happen as soon as the president decided he would take over the Kennedy Center,” Baturin told the paper.
The independent Has contacted the Kennedy Center and Tiffany for Comment.
President Trump announced the latest crop of Kennedy Center Honorees earlier this week and named the 70s rock band Kiss, Land legend George Strait, Disco Singer Gloria Gaynor, actor Sylvester Stallone and British actor Michael Crawford.
They will be celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors Award Ceremony in December, host of none other than Donald Trump.
In February, Trump bowed decades of top-notch ship at the public-private art institution and pushed presidential confidence-confidence thrustes out of the Biden era.
The new board then took the unusual step in voting Trump as his chairman.
Since the acquisition, Trump has promised to eliminate “woke up” content from the Kennedy Center and has been greeted with some boos and boycotts from audience members and artists.
The president’s Republican allies meanwhile have proposed a bill that would rename the Kennedy Center to Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts.
The president, who announced Honorees this week, said he was personally involved in the selection and vetoed “a pair of wokesters” proposed by the Kennedy Center Board.
The staff was reportedly caught by the guard of the decision, and the Kennedy Center Honor’s Executive Produce Matthew Winer announced his resignation this week.
The Kennedy Center is not the only major public institution in Washington to get a Trump makeover.
The White House is reportedly planning a sweeping review of the Smithsonian institution, home to many of the country’s leading historical and cultural museums, to ensure that everything from exhibitions to operations is in line with the president’s interpretation of the story before the upcoming parties to the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States