The Maine Crafts Association announces the MCA 2018 Master Craft Artist Award

The Maine Crafts Association announces the MCA 2018 Master Craft Artist Award Recipients: Steve Cayard of Wellington, ME, Patricia Daunis-Dunning of Portland, ME, and David Wolfe of Portland, ME.

The Maine Crafts Association (MCA), a statewide non-profit organization promoting the work of Maine’s craft artists, has named Steve Cayard, Patricia Daunis-Dunning and David Wolfe as the 2018 recipients of the MCA Master Craft Artist Award. Recipients are selected for demonstrating excellence in craftsmanship, inspired design, a singular voice or style, and a career of service to the field.

The 2018 MCA Master Craft Award nomination process began in late 2017 with submissions from past award recipients, members of the Maine Crafts Association, and the public. The 2018 recipients were selected by Andres Verzosa, an art advocate, collector, curator, and writer with a distinguished history of service to Maine artists and arts organizations.

Verzosa writes, “We have a lot to be proud of in the Maine arts community, the state is rich with master-level artists. From the long list of stellar nominees, I’ve selected three who are highly regarded by their peers, possess accomplished bodies of work, demonstrate long histories of working in their communities, and have achieved significant recognition in their field. Steven Cayard was a catalyst in the renaissance of birch bark canoe-making with David Moses Bridges (deceased in 2017) and is included in the 2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial. Patricia Daunis’ designs have been worn nationally for decades, and her studio is a place of growth for many up-and-coming jewelers. David Wolfe is a leader in the Portland printmaking community; his print house serves as hub and resource, and places Portland on a national scale map for printmaking.“

A Celebration, Awards Presentation and Reception for the 2018 Awardees will be announced at a later date.

In the tradition of the Master Craft Artist Award, recipients are invited to teach at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle ME for MCA Workshop Weekend, May 9-12, 2019. Information and registration will be published at mainecrafts.org in the fall of 2018.

In recognition of 10 years of the MCA Master Craft Artist Award, all recipients from 2009 through 2018 will be featured in an exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA in 2019. Exhibition dates are June 8-October 27, 2019 with a public opening reception on Sunday, June 9, 2019 from 2-5pm.

Steve Cayard

Master birchbark canoe maker Steve Cayard settled in Wellington, Maine in 1987. His canoes are based on careful research and are faithful to the tradition of the early Wabanaki birchbark canoes of Maine and New Brunswick- a style which eventually became the model for the wood-canvas canoes of Old Town, E. M. White and Chestnut, among others. Cayard has been sought out by native communities as a teacher, and he has felt honored to offer them his knowledge in a series of workshops in Maine and New Brunswick. He has also taught birchbark canoe building classes for the general public. He completed his first birchbark canoe in 1978 and has been building on commission since 1995. In 1998, Cayard was honored with a request by the National Museum of the American Indian to restore an 1890s birch bark canoe by well-known Passamaquoddy canoe builder Tomah Joseph. In 2002 Barry Dana, then chief of the Penobscot Nation, invited Cayard to lead a birchbark canoe workshop on Indian Island, the Penobscot reservation in Old Town, Maine. This became the first in a number of on-site canoe workshops that Cayard taught in the Wabanaki communities. Cayard’s work has been featured in WoodenBoat Magazine and his collaborative canoe with the late David Moses Bridges (commissioned by the Abbey Museum in Bar Harbor) was recognized for inclusion in the 2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial.

Patricia Daunis-Dunning

Esteemed jeweler Patricia Daunis-Dunning considers jewelry “site-specific sculpture”. A Maine native, she founded Daunis Studio with her husband William Dunning in Portland in the early 80s. Over the years Daunis has employed and inspired many young artists and helped them to develop into confident crafts people. Nationally renowned in the field of jewelry and metalsmithing, Daunis-Dunning has been recognized with many awards, among them DeBeers’s Diamonds Today Award, World Gold Council’s Grand and First Prizes, the MJSA’ Custom Design of Distinction (1st and 2nd Prize), and the Jewel Award from Jewelers of America. She has authored numerous articles for Jewelers Inc. Magazine, and has been featured in Contemporary American Jewelry Design by Ettagale Blauer and Metalworking for Jewelry by Tim McCreight, among many other craft and industry publications.Her work has been shown regionally and nationally, including exhibitions at the Museum of Arts & Design (formerly American Craft Museum) and the Fuller Craft Museum. Daunis-Dunning has taught at Boston University and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.

David Wolfe

Master printer David Wolfe founded Wolfe Editions, a letterpress and fine art printing studio with educational programming in Portland, Maine in 1997. Prior to opening his own studio, he worked for several well known printing establishments, including Stinehour Press in Lunenberg, Vermont and Anthoensen Press in Portland. Wolfe’s woodcuts, prints and handmade books are in the collections of Bates College Museum of Art, Bowdoin College Museum of Art Special Collections and the Portland Museum of Art, as well as numerous private collections. He has led many workshops at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and was Lead Printmaker in Residence at Penland School of Crafts in 2009. Wolfe studied printmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art.