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Canadian Society for Creative Leathercraft
1950–2026
CSCL·People·People of the Society·Carol McLean
The People

Carol McLean

← People of the Society · on record 1968–2014

This is the Society’s own record of Carol McLean. A biography: A Fellow’s Memoir → · Who’s Who in Leathercraft · Spring 1983 →

The Society’s records

Everything the Society’s own records say of Carol McLean: the offices held, the standings conferred, and the awards won. Where the records are silent, so is this part of the page.

Also recorded as Ann McLean

Standing

Life Member 1989 · Honourary Life Member 1997

Branch

Woodstock · recorded holding office in 1988

Certification

  • Associate of the CSCL 1970
    Associate awards were presented to Dorothy Harwood, Carol McLean and Beula Reynolds by Clara Cavanagh, Chairman of the Council of Fellows. This newsletter also names Carol McLean, of Woodstock, the winner of that year's Janis Zalitis silver pin, awarded to the new Associate whose articles were passed with the highest mark. The register had held her only from the undated c. 1985 list.
  • Fellow of the CSCL 1975
    The Council of Fellows' own report for 1975-76 gives her mark: elected a Fellow with an average of 89.45% (the Annual Meeting 1976: programme, West Plains United Church, Burlington, p10).

A Fellow who helped found the Society's Woodstock Branch and, in her own words, “the first CSCL member to make and teach leather masks”; once its youngest Fellow, later its eldest. She began leathercraft at night school in 1964, was one of the Woodstock group that joined the London Branch, and was among the hardest-working members when the Woodstock Branch was formed, named in its first entry in the Weston Trophy branch competition in 1969. She entered competitions from 1965, winning the Chatelaine award for Best in Show at the C.N.E. three times, among them 1978, for a checker board, and 1979, for a box designed from a rock, and the O.C.C. award for original design on a handbag. On the Executive Council she served as Publicity Chairman and Recording Secretary and on the Exhibition Committee, and in 1983 she was the Society’s Archivist. The 1983 “Who's Who” says she taught night-school leathercraft for fourteen years at Fanshawe College in Aylmer, and the Spring 2014 newsletter that she taught the leather programme at Continuing Education for some fifteen years, feeding many new members into the Society; her own account of her teaching is with her life and work below. She helped with volunteer leathercraft in Woodstock’s public and high schools and ran workshops for the Society, among them one on designing from music rhythms as the source of the design lines; she demonstrated at the CSCL booth at the Canadian National Exhibition, and appeared on Western Cable TV in January 1974, demonstrating a moulded tray and maple leaf pins across two half-hour programmes, interviewed by Woodstock alderman Wendy Calder. The 1983 “Who's Who” adds that she was the charter president of the Oxford Quilters Guild in Ingersoll, taught quilting at the Canadian Embroiderers Guild in London, and taught Japanese embroidery, crochet, crewel embroidery and other crafts for the Oxford Board of Education and the Creative Arts Centre in Ingersoll. She took part in the World Craft Conference in Toronto in 1974 and at Oaxtepec, Mexico, in 1976, and, on a Wintario grant, in the Pacific Friendship Fibre Arts Conference in Hawaii, where her design was chosen as the “memory” pattern given to every delegate. She wrote for the newsletter repeatedly over the 1980s (“Handcrafted — What Is It?” (1980), a report on the leather booth at the International Plowing Match, Oxford County (1980), “Hazards in Leatherwork”, “Design Source Books” and “Leather Covered Bottles” (all 1982), “Purse Strap Hangers” and “Philosophies Collected Through the Years” (1984)) and judged repeatedly outside the Society's own competitions, including the Woodstock Museum's IMAGE '84 show and a Lillian Kay poll. She wrote several of the Society's own obituary tributes in the 2000s (Nora Huyck, Gladys Riddell, Dorothy Muma among them) and judged the Society's biennial exhibitions into the 2010s; the Spring 2014 newsletter gives her full name, Carol Ann McLean, and her Society role at the time, Member-at-Large. Her own undated memoir for the archive, written to Lauchlan Harrison, tells the mask story: Loreen Manuel was teaching the Woodstock leather class at Continuing Education and asked Carol to take it over; to qualify, Carol demonstrated mask-making to Teaching Standards chair Robert Muma, a world-renowned master bookbinder who had never before seen a leather mask and was intrigued by it. She recalls being cautioned not to expect a strong result before passing her Fellow standing on the first attempt, and she went on judging until travel became too difficult. She showed two pieces at Leather '74, the Society's exhibition at the Toronto Public Libraries' Learning Resources Centre, 666 Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto, 3-28 June 1974; five in the Society's exhibition at the Craft Gallery and Resource Centre of the Ontario Crafts Council, 346 Dundas Street West, Toronto, 2-28 March 1976; five at Leather '78, the Society's exhibition at the Etobicoke Civic Centre, 550 Burnhamthorpe Road, November 1978; and two at Leather '82, at the City of Brampton Library and Art Gallery, Bramalea, 3 July to 1 August 1982. One piece of hers, a box in tan morocco in a 3-D design technique, was chosen for the Society's 1985 Travelling Exhibition from about sixty entries by the judges Robert Muma, Paul Williams and Alison Parsons.

From Spring 1983, page 6; Spring 2014; Fall 1978, page 4; October 1979, page 8; Leather ’74: exhibition catalogue, Toronto Public Libraries, page 6; Exhibition catalogue 1976: Craft Gallery of the Ontario Crafts Council, Toronto, page 6; Leather ’78: exhibition catalogue, Etobicoke Civic Centre, page 6; Leather ’82: exhibition catalogue, Brampton Public Library and Art Gallery, page 5; Members-at-Large: Final Newsletter Report, page 2; Fall 1985, page 4; and Fall 2026, page 2.

Served the Society as

  • Woodstock Branch Publicity 1968
  • Woodstock Branch Treasurer 1968–1977
  • Executive Council 1970–1975
  • Woodstock Branch President 1971–1973
  • Recording Secretary 1972–1974
  • Woodstock Branch Past President 1974
  • Council 1976–1979
  • World Crafts Council Delegate 1976
  • Annual Meeting Chairman 1977
  • Council of Fellows Secretary 1977
  • Woodstock Branch Librarian 1979
  • Woodstock Branch Program Chairman 1979
  • Archivist 1980–1988
  • Woodstock Branch Secretary 1988
  • Exhibition Committee by 1983
  • Publicity Chairman by 1972

Honours

  • Caring Canadian Award 2014
    Presented by the Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, at a ceremony in Toronto in February 2014.
  • Honourary Life Membership 1988
    Recorded as an Honourary Life Member (and Fellow) in the Society's membership lists. Awarded at the 38th Annual General Meeting, 6-8 May 1988, the Royal Resort, Fenelon Falls; she was unable to attend and received it later. Her own profile (Spring 1989 newsletter, p5) adds that she had been a Woodstock Branch member since its inception and interested in leather from the early 1960s, trained under Irva Ford, Clara Cavanagh, Anne Hook and Olivia Smith, and, as a Director, organized the Society's archives; it dates her Chatelaine Award from the C.N.E. to 1976.
  • Ontario Volunteer Service Award
    Named on the Society's roll of Ontario Volunteer Service Award recipients.
  • Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal 2012
    Nominated by Dorothy McPherson for the Society's contribution to community involvement in Oxford County; one of 30 medals presented in the county, by David McKenzie, Member of Parliament for Oxford, on 10 November 2012 at the Woodstock Quality Hotel.
  • Ontario Volunteer Service Award 2002
    Announced by Dorothy McPherson and Kevin Armstrong at the 52nd Annual Meeting, FCSCL, Woodstock. The Official Awards were to be presented at a ceremony not yet announced on this page.

Awards

  • Bramalea Ribbon, Leather '82 1982
  • C.N.E. Arts and Crafts, Women's Division 1975
  • C.N.E. Special Chatelaine Award 1978, 1979
  • Canadian National Exhibition Category 213: 1st 1978
  • Canadian National Exhibition Category 218: 1st 1978
  • Canadian National Exhibition Category 219: 2nd 1978
  • Canadian National Exhibition First Prize 1970
  • Canadian National Exhibition Hobby Class 210 (Household Articles) 1980
  • Canadian National Exhibition Hobby Class 212 (Belts) 1980
  • Canadian National Exhibition Hobby Class 214 (Pocket-sized Items) 1980
  • Canadian National Exhibition Hobby Class 215 (Molded Articles) 1980
  • Canadian National Exhibition Hobby Class 216 (Jewellery) 1980
  • Canadian National Exhibition Leathercraft Prize (Women's Division) 1971
  • Canadian National Exhibition Women's Division 1972
  • Canadian National Exhibition Women's Division 1st Place 1973
  • Canadian National Exhibition Women's Division 2nd Place 1973
  • Craftsman Ribbon 1970, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987
  • Irva Ford Award 1980
  • Leather '76 Award 1976
  • Leather '76 Craftsman Award 1976
  • Leather '76 Salon Award 1976
  • Leather '78 Memorial Award 1978
  • Salon Award 1979, 1984, 1986
  • Salon Ribbon 1978, 1987
  • Special Table 1985
  • Western Fair 1st Prize 1969
  • Western Fair 2nd Prize 1969
  • Western Fair First Prize 1972, 1976
  • Western Fair Second Prize 1972, 1974
  • Zalitis Pin 1970

Demonstrations given

Where this comes from

Life and work

In Carol McLean's own words, from her letters to the archive. Other lines come from the sources named under each.

Teaching
For more than twenty-five years she taught leather, quilting, Japanese bunka embroidery and other hand arts in the Oxford County Board of Education's evening Continuing Education programme. For seventeen years she also taught a daytime class she had started at the East Oxford school: the farm wives in her Woodstock night class could not reach a 7 pm start at evening chore time, so the principal let them use an empty classroom in the afternoon.

From her letter to the Society's archive, 28 September 2026.

Other crafts
Her quilting teaching took her across Canada and to the northern United States, Australia, Hawaii and Portugal, and the Canadian Quilters' Association gave her its Dorothy McMurdie Award for a significant contribution to quiltmaking in Canada.

From her letter to the Society's archive, 28 September 2026.

Honours
Her Queen's Jubilee medal, presented by the county's Member of Parliament, was given for her part in building the artistic life of her community: she helped found the Woodstock Leather Guild and the Oxford Quilters' Guild in Ingersoll, and taught leather, quilting and other courses in the Board of Education's Continuing Education programme for more than twenty-five consecutive years.

From her letter to the Society's archive, 20 October 2026.

The Governor General's Caring Canadian Award, presented at Queen's Park in Toronto so that the recipients need not travel to Ottawa, was for the many quilts she gave to wounded Canadian soldiers in hospital in Germany, just arrived from Afghanistan, and to women's shelters in Ontario. She was one of 42 recipients in Ontario. The two awards, she writes, mean so much to her because they showed how much she cared about the community around her and about the wider Canadian community.

From her letter to the Society's archive, 20 October 2026.

The Governor General's honours records list her Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012) and the Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers, awarded on 4 July 2013 for her guild leadership and for her quilting and leatherwork in support of wounded soldiers and women at risk.

From Governor General of Canada, honours recipients, https://gg.ca/en/honours/recipients/126-236809 and https://gg.ca/en/honours/recipients/342-73458.

The Society's own page recorded both presentations: the Diamond Jubilee Medal on 10 November 2012, at an afternoon ceremony in Woodstock, by Dave MacKenzie, Member of Parliament for Oxford, on Dorothy McPherson's nomination; and the Caring Canadian Award on 18 February 2014 at Queen's Park, Toronto, by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, David Onley.

From The Society's Facebook page, posts of 13 November 2012 and 24 April 2014.

In the press
The Ingersoll Times of 19 October 2011 wrote that she had taught quilt making and other crafts, among them leatherwork and Japanese embroidery.

From Tara Bowie (QMI Agency), Ingersoll Times, 19 October 2011.

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