Award of Distinction Trophy

The Furni­ture Society is pleased to congrat­u­late Fred Rose, the winner of our inau­gural Award of Distinc­tion Trophy Design Contest. Rose was chosen to create the Trophy to be presented to the Award of Distinc­tion honorees for the next 3 years. Our winner was selected by esteemed jurors Wendy Maruyama and Monica Obniski from a compet­i­tive pool of talented appli­cants. The jurors would like to thank all who applied and applaud their creativity.

Fred Rose grew up along the river in Carmel Valley, CA. He received his BFA in ceram­ics from Cali­for­nia State Univer­sity, Long Beach and his MFA in sculp­ture from Cali­for­nia State Univer­sity, Fuller­ton. He taught Wood­work­ing at Cali­for­nia State Univer­sity, Long Beach for 7 years and is currently a self-employed artist living in Costa Mesa. Most of his wood is collected from locally found logs from the urban forests of Long Beach and Costa Mesa. Often combin­ing found natural organic forms with his own man-made objects, he collects evidence of how we deal with living trees by pruning them or how trees as living things respond to adver­sity as a source of poetic and concep­tual inquiry. He has a growing fond­ness for things he calls wood anomalies.

The trophy was first presented to the 2019 Honoree, Tom Loeser, at the Award of Distinc­tion luncheon taking place on Satur­day, June 22 at the 2019 Confer­ence FS19: Ground­work: Inspi­ra­tion, Inter­sec­tions, and Exper­i­men­ta­tion of Furni­ture Prac­tice (June 19 – 22, 2019 in Milwau­kee, WI). 

This trophy honors the spirit of the Award of Distinc­tion program and reflects our grat­i­tude to the honorees for their service to the greater Furni­ture-making commu­nity. The Award of Distinc­tion program was insti­tuted in 2001 and is presented during The Furni­ture Society’s annual confer­ence to honor indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions who have had a profound impact on the field and whose lives, work and efforts have strength­ened the fabric of the Furni­ture Society’s community.