2020 John D. Mineck Furniture Fellowship Award Winner

BOSTON – Septem­ber 24, 2020 – The Society of Arts+Crafts in Boston (SA+C) announced today that Mass­a­chu­setts-born artist Aspen Golann is the 2020 recip­i­ent of the John D. Mineck Furni­ture Fellow­ship. Awarded annu­ally to support an early-career furni­ture artist, the Mineck Fellow­ship includes an unre­stricted $25,000 prize. Golann was selected by SA+C from a national pool of 48 appli­cants and will be recog­nized at on online cere­mony Oct., 3, 2020.

Inspired by the craft of 17th- and 18th-century furni­ture makers, Golann uses tradi­tional forms and tech­niques, while giving her pieces subtle, contem­po­rary twists she calls ​“inter­ven­tions.” Golann says her work exam­ines gender and power through classic Amer­i­can deco­ra­tive arts; she creates pieces in the spirit of the ​“seen, but not heard” expe­ri­ence of women, espe­cially in histor­i­cal domes­tic settings. Golann says her furni­ture forms pay tribute both to the women and the furni­ture as ​“inti­mate, but unac­knowl­edged” members of a household.

“I never expected to fall in love with antique furni­ture,” Golann says of her craft and train­ing. Her educa­tion at NBSS, and the mentor­ship from New Hamp­shire-based chair­maker Peter Galbert, led her to recog­nize the beauty of the work and inspired her appli­ca­tion to the Mineck Fellowship.

Golann plans to dedi­cate her Fellow­ship funds to three areas: learn­ing; teach­ing; and tool purchase. Her time will be divided among pursu­ing mentor­ship in the craft of Windsor-style chair­mak­ing, sharing exper­tise by teach­ing work­shops across the country in places where the craft is not tradi­tion­ally taught, and creat­ing a network to purchase and share wood­work­ing tools among fellow early-career furni­ture makers. Golann aims to foster commu­nity among those consid­ered ​“outsiders” in the field, by increas­ing access for wood­work­ers who are women, and those who are non-gender binary and BIPOC.

“Aspen intends to share a signif­i­cant portion of her award proceeds to ​‘pay it forward,’ and enhance the careers of many addi­tional early-career makers,” says Society of Arts+Crafts Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Brigitte Martin. ​“Her generos­ity of spirit mirrors the Mineck Foundation’s inten­tions; and it set her appli­ca­tion apart from an equally impres­sive pool of highly-skilled and worthy appli­cants. The Society of Arts Crafts is delighted for Aspen to receive this pres­ti­gious award and we wish her much success in her Fellowship year.”

The John D. Mineck Furni­ture Fellow­ship is one of the largest furni­ture and craft prizes in the field, and one of the grants supported by the John D. Mineck Foun­da­tion, created to honor the diverse inter­ests Mineck pursued through­out his life. The Boston Golf Club in Hingham hosts an annual tour­na­ment to raise for funds for the Foun­da­tion. The Society of Arts + Crafts, where Mineck once served as pres­i­dent of the Board of Trustees, has admin­is­tered the fellow­ship since it began in 2007.

For more than a century, the Society of Arts+Crafts has connected artists with the commu­ni­ties that sustain them. On the cusp of its 125th anniver­sary, the orga­ni­za­tion is embark­ing on a bold new strate­gic plan to apply the organization’s efforts towards promot­ing the rele­vance of craft in the 21st-century.

MEDIA CONTACT: For more infor­ma­tion and photos, or to speak with Fellow­ship recip­i­ent Aspen Golann or Society of Arts + Crafts Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Brigitte Martin, contact John Michael Kennedy, jmk@​jmkpr.​com or 781 – 620-1761.