BC Achievement Foundation announces inaugural Judson Beaumont Emerging Artist Award for Elen Danielle
Janaki Larsen, Nicholas Purcell, and Ann McLaren also win 2021 Carter Wosk Applied Art and Design honours
Hand-crafted poppy brooches by Elen Danielle.
Ceramic vases by Janaki Larsen.
A chair by furniture maker Nicholas Purcell.
THE BC ACHIEVEMENT Foundation has announced the 2021 Awardees of the Carter Wosk Applied Art and Design program—including the winner of a new prize named for late furniture designer Judson Beaumont.
The Judson Beaumont Emerging Artist designation goes to Elen Danielle for her textile art and design. The award celebrates Beaumont’s talent and entrepreneurial creativity, aiming to support, mentor, and highlight emerging talent. Beaumont, who passed away in 2020 just before the pandemic shut the world down, was a mainstay at the Eastside Culture Crawl and sold his whimsical furniture pieces around the world.
Danielle, who studied industrial design at Emily Carr University, creates one-of-a-kind textile pieces, with more than 15 years of experience creating clothing, accessories, and other soft treasures. She draws inspiration from West Coast nature and has a passion for sustainability. Designs include exquisite hand-embroidered silk and gold brooches, and hand-painted silk charmeuse poppies that are contoured in radiant gold threads and feature sparkly black garnet details.
Other Carter Wosk Applied Art and Design awards go to ceramicist Janaki Larsen and furniture designer Nicholas Purcell. Emily Carr University-trained Larsen makes ceramic bowls, plates, and vases influenced by the Japanese Wabi-Sabi philosophy and aimed at reconnecting their users with the physicality of their world. With a background studying in England under renowned maker David Charlesworth, Purcell is known for his furniture’s exacting joinery and meticulous detail.
The board of the BC Achievement Foundation also named Ann McLaren as the 2021 Award of Distinction Laureate, honouring her career in craniofacial prosthetics. McLaren studied figurative sculpture at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and is a founding co-owner of Third Dimension Studios, making life-like recreations for international museums such as the Florida Museum of Natural History, the DNA Learning Center in Cold Springs New York, and the NASA Space Center in Houston, Texas. She also worked as a special make-up effects artist on A-list feature films and television productions, later studying forensic facial reconstruction and employing her skills to create portraits for a Missing Persons Unit. As an instructor in the Media Arts Department at the Art Institute of Vancouver, Ann introduced real-world sculpture skills to 3-D computer students. In her own art practice, she combines her love of figurative sculpture using different materials, exhibiting everywhere from Vancouver’s Artropolis to the Surrey Art Gallery and the Community Arts Council of Vancouver.
Awardees will be celebrated in an online campaign culminating in a film tribute production to the 2021 Award of Distinction.
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