Each year, we ask our jurors to select artwork for two awards;

the Jurors’ Choice Award and the Surface Design Award of Excellence.

Jurors’ Choice Award:  Jurors’ criteria for selection of this award:  innovation in use of materials, concept, or execution of artwork, as well as excellence in design, construction and presentation.  Jurors are asked to seek contemporary work which stretches the idea of what has traditionally been thought of as “rug hooking,” thus elevating the medium to an art form.  All work submitted must contain some form of hooking technique.

Surface Design Award of Excellence:  This award is given to the most outstanding artwork incorporating surface design, while demonstrating originality and excellence in design and technique. 

Surface design encompasses the coloring, patterning, structuring and transformation of fabric, fiber and other materials. It involves the creative exploration of processes such as dyeing, painting, printing, stitching, embellishing, quilting, weaving, knitting, felting, hooking and papermaking.

We are very fortunate to have been selected to make these awards due, in part, to the outstanding credentials of our jurors.

The award consists of a one-year membership in the Surface Design Association and includes a subscription to the quarterly publication Surface Design Journal. The name of the award winner, and the show, are published in the SDA Newsletter, and a photo of award-winning work is currently displayed on the SDA website gallery page.

2010 Jurors:  Kim Proctor and Mary Quinlan Jurors’ Choice Winner
“Petosky Stone: Memories of Michigan” Liz Alpert Fay Sandy Hook, Connecticut
2010 Surface Design Award of Excellence
“Moss” Tracy Jamar New York, New York
2009 Jurors:  Diane Dutchick and Martha Sielman Jurors’ Choice Co-Winners
“Lady in Gray” Molly Colegrove Rochester, New York	“Dune Grass” Lara Magruder Hayward, California
2009 Surface Design Award of Excellence
“Fly Free” Liz Alpert Fay Sandy Hook, Connecticut
2008 First Place Award “Just For Fun” Liz Alpert Fay Sandy Hook, Connecticut
2008 Surface Design Award
FIRST PLACE “Four Seasons on the North Fork” Marilyn Bottjer Eastchester, New York	HONORABLE MENTION “Sampler: White With Buttons” Constance D. Old New Canaan, Connecticut
2007 Jurors' Choice Co-Winners
“After the Rain” Tracy Jamar New York, New York	“A Cloudy Day at the Beach” Rachelle LeBlanc Saint Albert, Alberta, Canada