Living Treasure Program

The MAWS Living Treasure Award is designed to recognize and honor MAWS members who have made outstanding contributions in the field of fiber arts.  The award is bestowed biennially on a fiber artist who has demonstrated excellence in craftsmanship, provided leadership or has been a source of inspiration and encouragement to others, or who has contributed to the betterment and development of the fiber arts at the local, state, regional or national level.  It is these Montana “treasures” to whom we wish to pay tribute.

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2024 Inductee:

• Barb French

Barbara French has a deep passion for the Fiber Arts....and the weaving world is better for it.  In her quiet, humble way she inspires by her teaching, mentoring, and amazingly creative and varied body of work.  She is not only knowledgeable, but patient, warm and inclusive when teaching.  Her willingness to take on the role of leadership on the local and state level has gifted the fiber community with incredible learning opportunities.

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Barb works across a variety of mediums.  She spins and dyes the fibers she uses for her uniquely planned creations.  She knits beautiful sweaters and hats, weaves rugs of all sizes and weaves clothing such as ponchos, a Noh coat and children’s apparel.  Barb’s towel sets provide a window into her creative skills in her use of color, texture and design.  She is able to combine different materials and colors to stunning effect.  She has a special niche in her use of color.  She enjoys the creativity of intuitive warping and the simplicity of plain and twill weaves. 

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​Barb French is an inspirational fiber artist to many.  Her body of work is creative and varied in well-grounded technique.  She is so very generous with her talent and time in teaching and mentoring.  Her sincere encouragement leaves the student with the feeling of success, regardless of skill level.  That is a gifted teacher.

 

2022 Inductees:

 

• JOAN GOLDSTEIN

Joan Goldstein has been active in the fiber arts community since her college days. Her love of spinning and dyeing led her to open a dye lab in her home basement where she was able to embark upon a lifetime study of color, both with the early-on available commercial dyes and more recently, with naturally harvested dye plants and bugs. Her knowledge of earth friendly mordants makes her a go-to advisor. Joan taught herself to use carders and a drop spindle which she takes on trips, hikes and to guild demonstrations. While on vacation airport travelers often stop to watch her spin and of course are excited to watch the primitive craft demonstrated. Joan moved onto weaving and because of her understanding of fabric structure (based on her spinning and knitting skills), she soon challenged herself to learn various weave structures. Her background as a teacher led her to sharing her skills at public demos, workshops, during guild meetings and in her home dye lab. She is a one-woman fiber trade show.

Joan has a diverse fiber background which was most recently displayed as she stepped up to help a new guild member weave a basket. I have been her student during both drum carding and hand carding classes and loved her challenge to move past my comfort zone to try various blends and color combinations. Her class fiber supplies are always impeccably washed, carded and presented and the beauty of her fibers was my incentive to want to learn more.

Alpine guild has been blessed as Joan has on numerous occasions warped a guild loom to pass around for all to learn a new draft. Last year she led us in a REP WEAVE sample and the planning meeting in her home was an eye opener between non-ridged texsolv and metal heddles when we thought to transfer the warp to a different loom. Joan finished the transfer after the meeting and thus saved the doomed project. When Joan invites people to weave during our fair demo, children and adults are drawn- in watching her manipulating the 4-harness loom while creating fabric while always sharing her, you can do this positive attitude.

Joan has been our newsletter editor, secretary, president, treasurer and librarian for Alpine Guild. She stepped up to be the chairman for our 2016 MAWS on the Lake event and kept us all on schedule from the early planning through the closing day including the follow- up reports of that epic event. She planned our group preliminary onsite visitations to several proposed MAWS campground sites and then arranged a weekend to volunteer to clean the camp, which earned us a substantial discount on the overall fees. Joan is now MAWS President, again, stepping up when needed, always happy to serve. She brings with her thoughtful leadership and planning skills, a rare gift.

Joan's hand spun yarns and finished garments are a thrill to touch and see as she often wears her creations. It is not unusual to see her in a sheep to shawl creation. Her home is filled with her hand-woven items. She often times has invited members to finish off a warp on one of her looms which provides a jump start to members who need just that kind of inspiration.

Joan's willingness to share her skills and to also to continue her fiber education keeps her current with modern trends as well as weaving's timeless traditions. Her ongoing willingness to step into leadership positions and to serve makes her my choice for Living Treasure.

• MAUDE KNUDSEN

The nominee was the first weaver in the state of Montana to receive her HGA Certificate of Excellence Handweaving – Master Weaver (1988). 

Maude was inducted into the Montana Circle of American Masters Weaving in Helena in 2010.

Her weaving is innovative, creative and technically close to perfect.  She is not only a master weaver but also a master spinner. She strives for excellence in every creative endeavor she masters. For example, she has been doing Eco printing.. She spent her entire summer researching and experimenting with the technique to perfect it before placing items she had made in shows and for sale.  She makes sure that every item she makes exemplifies good design married with excellent technique.

 

Maude has received awards every time she chooses to show her work.  Some (but not all)      of her awards include:

• HGA Award MAWS 1990 juried show\

• Montana State Fair Fine Arts Juried Show (multiple times)

• Awarded Montana State Fair Hand Weaving Department Best of Fair Spinning & Best of Fair Weaving many times over the years

• Art in the Park Juried Show – Judges Choice (1986)

• Gallery 16: Multiple shows and exhibitions

• C.M. Russell Museum – 2 person show (with Annette Schipf)

• “Montana Fiber Traditions’ Holter Museum 2019

• Great Falls Weavers & Spinners Guild: Member 1969-Present.

• Spinning Instructor: Great Falls Public Schools Adult Education: 1984-2000

• Corporate member Gallery 16: 1990-Present.

• Offices held: Corporate President 1995-1996, Corporate Treasurer 1997-Present

• Montana State Fair Hand Weaving Superintendent 1975, 2000-2008

• MAWS President 1989-1990

• Co-Chairman MAWS Conference 1990 Great Falls

• Great Falls Weavers & Spinners Guild: She has held multiple offices in the Guild and teaches at least one workshop every year she has been asked.

• Montana State Fair: Maude has taught weaving workshops many times during the fair in the Handweaving Department. This creates a lot of interest from the public as they are able to observe the class as they attend the fair.

• HGA Certificate of Excellence Handweaving – Master Weaver (1988).

• Montana Circle of American Masters Weaving 2010

Maude has spent less time entering shows and exhibiting in the last few years as she opened her own tax accounting firm. The time she does have is given to promoting the fiber arts with the Great Falls area by demonstrating & volunteering at the Montana State Fair, helping new weavers in the Great Falls weaving guild, etc. She is planning on selling her business in the near future and looking forward to being active in both the Great Falls Weavers & Spinning Guild and MAWS.

I wish to stress that Maude shares knowledge generously with any student or beginning weaver that comes her way. She will spend hours working with a beginner weaver to help them with a weaving project or issue.

• PAM REFLING

Pam is a born leader, scholar and thinker and has become an excellent weaver, teacher and explorer of new ideas, techniques, materials and equipment. Her tremendous generosity as well as her commitment to building and maintaining connection between weavers drives her efforts as a teacher, study group member, guild officer and ANWG conference co chair.

Pam immerses herself in intensive study of a variety of techniques and combines them with innovation. Her use of color and her skill as a dyer are particularly noteworthy. Trained as a chemist, she is precise in her dyeing and intuitive in her use of color combinations. Her painted warps are beautiful, her color range whether bold or subtle is striking. She has a good eye.

Much of Pam's work is done on computer assisted looms. She has taken a particular interest in mastering the computer drafting programs that make complex work possible. She has attended the AVL school in California, studied with Bob Keates and Margaret Coe and with their permission and cooperation developed a Computer Drafting Workshop which she taught statewide at the MAWS 2018 Conference and at various guild programs.

As a collaborator and mentor Pam is very active in the Bozeman Weavers Guild study groups, mentoring new weavers and problem solving with experienced members.

Pam developed and taught her computer drafting workshop at various conferences and guild meetings. Her concise yet detailed handouts delight the attendees at her programs and workshops. She was the 1999 ANWG co-chair in Bozeman, the Bozeman Weavers Guild President three times, and co-chaired a guild exhibit at Sola Cafe. Pam has participated in many shows and sales, demonstrated at weave-ins and spin-ins, and taught spinning, weaving and dyeing. Over the years, Pam has made herself available to the Bozeman elementary schools teaching weaving and marbling. Basically, Pam is one of those people who say, "Yes I can help with that.", and that makes us all breathe a sigh of relief. She is capable, collaborative and generous.

• BARBARA HAND

Barbara Hand is such a sweetly unassuming person that many in Montana might not know what a remarkable weaving talent we have in our midst. We cannot think of a more worthy candidate for Living Treasure. Barbara is an extremely accomplished weaver with an artist’s eye for color and design. She invented a new technique so she could better interpret the beauty of Montana in her rugs and wall hangings. She has been a hard-working and prolific weaver throughout a career spanning almost 50 years. She is also a kind human being who has mentored and influenced many others and continues to do so at age 80.

 

Barbara began weaving while studying Fine Arts at Penn State. Always exceptionally productive, she held her first exhibit with thirty rugs. In the 1980s, she invented a new weaving technique that she called Double Warp Overlay—a combination of the Theo Moorman technique and Collingwood’s three-end block weave. The creativity and artistry embodied in her works led to numerous large commissioned pieces for

churches, banks, public institutions, and private homes all over the United States. There are far too many to list here, but one example is Bitterroots, a site-specific,

shaped piece commissioned by the Missoula Art Museum. Another, Square Butte, was commissioned by a Great Falls law office. One of Barbara’s rugs was displayed at Seattle Convergence in 1982, and another piece, Simply Bamboo, hung in a place of honor at Dallas Convergence in 1984. For the past fifteen years, Barbara has worked for a single client, designing and producing dozens of large rugs for the client’s homes in Montana and California, in rölakan, twill, and shaft switching techniques. Barbara displayed her work and taught her Double Warp Overlay technique at Convergence in the 1980s, and her classes influenced and inspired many weavers across the United States. Both Nadine Sanders and Michael Rohde credit Barbara for inspiring their own work with overlay. In 1985, Barbara had a month-long exhibit of her work, Looming Images, at the Missoula Art Museum. During this period, she worked 8–10 hours a day, producing rugs and wall hangings that were placed in galleries in Missoula, Kalispell, and Livingston. She also had rugs in galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Scottsdale, and Omaha. More recently, Barbara has taught workshops for the Missoula Weavers’ Guild in rug weaving techniques, has mentored several of us, and is always willing to share her knowledge. Recently, Barbara served as President of the Missoula Weavers’ Guild. In the 1980s, Barbara invited Peter Collingwood to teach a workshop in Missoula and was instrumental in starting the conversation about having a state-wide conference in Montana, after which MAWS was formed. In 1982, Barbara was one of 108 artists whose work was included in Architectural Crafts: A Handbook and a Catalog, published by the Western States Art Foundation. In 1983, Barbara wrote about the technique she invented in Weaver’s Journal, where editor Clotilde Barrett referred to her as one of “America’s best-known rug weavers.” One of Barbara’s pieces was shown in Architectural Digest in the 1980s. In November 2011, Barbara gave a presentation at the Missoula Art Museum, From the Floor to the Wall and Back Again, that she said would cover her "around-about journey of discovery, beauty, joy, and ultimately fulfillment over 40 years of weaving. I will go from the beginning, with what I call the hairy ropey period (brief, thank god), to rug weaving, to the invention of the overlay technique, to wall pieces and large commissions, to my current work of rölakan rugs for one interior.”

 

Montana has always been the inspiration for Barbara’s work. In a statement for her Missoula Art Museum exhibit, she wrote that living in Montana fueled her creativity, and that she drew inspiration not only from “the beauty and majesty of our mountains, prairies, clouds and rivers,” but also from “our state of mind.”

 

2018 Inductees:

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• JOANNE SETZER

JoAnne Setzer become a Living Treasure in 2018 after an outpouring of support from weavers in both Yellowstone and Gallatin counties.  She has been a member of both the Billings and Bozeman Weavers Guilds and presents annual programs in each.  She is a popular teacher at MAWS and Fiber Fest, and has the ability to teach a 10-year-old or an 80-year-old the joys of weaving.  She is a published author, including in the Handwoven Sept/Oct 2006 titled, “Doggie Bags – for dogs?”. JoAnne began weaving on her Larry Keller table loom and traveled to learn new techniques all over the nation.  She received her teaching certificate from the Colorado Women’s College with a minor in art, and an “Apprentice in Weaving” certificate from the State of Connecticut.  Her pieces grace local business offices in Billings.  She has operated “The Loomery” since 1985, which is both her studio and an area she shares with others for the purpose of teaching and supporting the weaving community.

Her passion for weaving and teaching weaving is unsurpassed.  Her energy and time are generously given: she makes house calls and helps people locate, fix, and learn everything about looms and the art of weaving.  One young student of JoAnne’s mentioned how she brings a passion to not only weaving but, in all pursuits, as she always has a listening ear and a bit of advice to help a person achieve personal dreams and success.  Her pieces are colorful, original and she is always testing new products and patterns as well as techniques, again, always in order to share with others.

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• NADINE SHAFER

Nadine has demonstrated excellence in craftsmanship, provided leadership or has been a source of inspiration and encouragement to others, or who has contributed to the betterment and development of the fiber arts at the local, state, regional or national level. Nadine has been weaving since 1978. She is a prolific craftsperson creating wall hangings, household textiles and clothing. Her wonderful color sense leads to exciting works of art and lovely textiles of all types. She was active in the Montana Arts Council  Weaving group and then became a founding member of MAWS in the early 1980’s. She and her late husband, Bud Shafer, watercolorist, were also instrumental in founding and fundraising for the Holter Museum of Art in Helena. Prize winning pieces from Electrum and other galleries form her collection. Her contributions to the arts have been numerous and her assistance to other weavers, generous. She has taught many workshops and held several offices in the local Helena Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild. She is an inspiration and motivator for fellow weavers both locally and statewide.

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2016 Inductees:

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• SUSAN LOHMULLER

Susan’s fiber rich life began at age 9 sewing Barbie clothes on an old Elna.  She learned to weave in 1978 while her babies crawled underneath her loom.  She has joyfully woven, knit, sewn and gardened her way through life.  Her favorite quote is, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” –Annie Dillard  

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• LINDA SHELHAMER

Linda Shelhamer spins, dyes, knits, and weaves in Billings. A fiber artist since 1983, she is very active in her local guilds, the Prairie Handspinners and Billings Weavers Guild. Guild members have called her the glue that holds things together.  She organizes many of the guilds workshops and often hosts the teachers in her home. She has taught many people to spin both independently and through the local yarn store and has taught spinning and dyeing at the state and national level and in Canada. She was Conference Chair of MAWS 2010 and Treasurer of MAWS 1998. She has served on the MAWS Board many times including stints as President, Newsletter Editor and currently as Treasurer. She also serves as a board member of the Yellowstone Art Museum. For many years she has taught dyeing, sun painting, etc. at a 2-day festival Summerfair.  Linda designs knitting patterns, particularly enjoying using her own and others’ hand dyed yarns. Her enthusiasm for the fiber arts and willingness to share are remarkable. 

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• BONNIE TARSES

"I became a Living Treasure because Vanetta and Jenne nominated me (grin). I learned many things about weavers guilds during my 30 years of living in Seattle. I was able to bring what I learned with me to Missoula, and have watched Missoula Weavers Guild double in size and enjoy stimulating programs and workshops. We have been able to donate to several worthy groups that help weavers in need funded by The Plaid Llama Sale. Next month our guild will select programs and workshops for the coming year. I have several ideas up my sleeve. (I am program chair for the guild, and they have let it be known it is a lifetime position)(another grin).

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2014 Inductees:

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• ANNETTE CADE

Annette is very well known in Montana’s fiber community.  Her guild members agree that her enthusiasm for weaving is utterly contagious and energizing.  She is recognized for her fine weaving skill, and not only does she excel at her craft, but she also collects and honors the fiber art of others, displaying it in her home.

 

Her contributions to the Montana fiber arts community have had a major impact over many years.  She is recognized mainly for her continual encouragement of others and for her organization of workshops, classes, conferences and all activities fiber related.  

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She is also a guild superstar; having served as president and traveled through that revolving door of guild offices for the past 35 years.  She plans the annual program calendar, keeps track of a huge library and inventory of equipment (at her home!), organizes spinning and weaving demonstrations, teaches guild workshops, and never misses the chance to learn new techniques by attending workshops.  She has chaired a MAWS conference, not once but twice!  Her guild, now 55 members strong, is successful primarily due to her hard work, enthusiasm and involvement.  

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• JUDITH COLVIN

“My passion for fiber arts definitely started with raising the animals that produce the fiber. After years of dabbling in spinning, knitting and weaving, felting really captured my interest.  I try to felt everyday because I have so many ideas floating around in my head. The possibilities seem endless and there is always something more to learn.  I love it!”

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Judith has spent a life surrounded and enriched by farm and fiber.  For the last thirty or more years, her fiber journey has taken her from keeping goats, to breeding and raising sheep, champion Shetland, blue-faced Leicester and Gotland crosses.  She has one of the original Shetland flocks, North American Shetland Sheepbreeders Association flock number 43.  She joined the Blue Faced Leicester Union in 2002 as one of its founding members.

 

Experience in spinning and dyeing wool eventually led her to experimentation with felt, which has become her passion.  Her felted body of work is extensive and diverse and includes everything from seat covers to very stylish and professionally made hats.  She exhibits her work in numerous galleries from Florida to Montana.  She also teaches felting classes and has been instrumental in bringing international instructors to Montana to teach.

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Montana became the lucky winner when in the 1980’s this spinner along with some friends decided to put together a fun fiber gathering.  Eventually that event became the Big Sky Fiber Arts Festival.

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MAWS has recognized these amazing individuals as "Living Treasures"
2024         Barb French
2022        Joan Goldstein, Barbara Hand, Maude Knudsen, 
                 and Pam Refling

2018        Jo Anne Setzer, Nadine Shafer

2016        Linda Shelhamer, Susan Lohmuller and                                     Bonnie Tarses

2014        Judith Colvin and Annette Cade
2012        Joan Contraman and Judie Overbeek
2010        Marge Ferrin and Mary Melander
2008        Marian Stratton and Karen Utzinger
2006        Barbara McMullen and Carol Roehm
2004        Betty Alexander and Milly Dover
2002        Coby Johnson and Karla Long
2000        Vernice Myers and Lois Howell
1998        Em Kolstad, Berta Morrison and Jay Sire
1996        Joanne Hall and Marian Ornelles
1994        Margaret Whitney
1992        Katherine Bradbury, Margaret Burlew,  
                Margaret Post, and Phillys Murdock

 

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