The Society’s Records

Dorothy McPherson

← People of the Society · on record 1991–2016

Everything the Society’s own records say of Dorothy McPherson — the offices held, the standings conferred, and the awards won — gathered on one page. Where the records are silent, so is this one.

This is the Society’s own record of Dorothy McPherson. A biography: In Their Own Words →

In memoriam · 24 February 2021

An Honourary Life Member (2016) and Member-at-Large; an international folk artisan and writer who joined the Society in 1990 and tirelessly promoted leathercraft. The obituary written by her daughter Lauren, the Society's Members-At-Large Representative, and printed in the January-April 2021 newsletter (p6) sets out what that came to: a member of the Hamilton branch from 1990 and Woodstock from 1997, she opened her own home to informal meetings that kept leathercraft alive for London crafters from 2010. She competed, retailed and exhibited leather over several decades; founded and curated the TRC Gallery in London, which staged monthly exhibitions of fine hand art by Canadian craftsmen including CSCL members, two of them devoted to leather alone. She conducted two workshops, was the Society's LEATHER 2010 liaison with the Ontario Crafts Council, and was Editor and contributing writer of Canadian Leathercraft. A jewellery maker herself, she co-founded the Society's London Jewellery Award. She wrote leather biographies for fifty-three CSCL artists in support of their Ontario Volunteer Service Award proposals, and secured three further distinguished awards for CSCL artists: the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award, the John Mather Award of the Ontario Crafts Council, and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In September 2000, at the executive meeting in Cooksville, she and her husband David were asked to produce a newsletter for Members-At-Large; that is the origin of the MAL-designated summer issue of Canadian Leathercraft, which ran for decades. She retired in 2013.

From January–April 2021, page 6.

Standing

Society Member 1997

Branch

Member-at-Large · member since 1990

Co-author, with David Windeyer, of the Society's fiftieth-anniversary article “Fifty Years of Leather Art” (2000), written when both were Board members. She made a square for the CSCL Leather Quilt. She showed two pieces at Leather 2000: Fifty Years of Leather Art, the Society’s exhibition in the Grand Hall Gallery of the Woodstock Museum, 466 Dundas St., 20 May to 17 June 2000 (Original Dolls - Set of Two; Duck Decoy), and five at Leather 2004, the Society's biennial juried exhibition at the Hamilton Public Library, 55 York Boulevard, 2-30 November 2004, with the Woodstock guild. The Society's own Members-at-Large final report (May 2026) credits her, as a freelance arts reporter, with more than 50 successful Ontario Society of Visual Artists (OVSA) nominations, a leather exhibition, and new editorial columns for the Society's newsletter, and names her and Marion Kehoe as co-founders of the Annual's London Jewellery Award, citing the Fall 2019 issue. Marion Kehoe's obituary says she co-sponsored the Award's creation in 2010, and Dorothy's own 2016 profile says it was awarded at the 61st Annual, held at Dundurn Castle, Hamilton.

From Fall 1998, page 2; Fifty Years of Leather Art (2000); Leather 2000: Fifty Years of Leather Art — Exhibition Programme, Woodstock Museum, page 4; Leather 2004 — Juried Biennial Exhibition, Hamilton Public Library, page 3; Members-at-Large — Final Newsletter Report, page 1; and Autumn 2018, page 6.

Served the Society as

Editor 1995–; 1995–1997
Correspondence 1997–1999
Corresponding Secretary 1997–1999
Director 1997–2012

Honours

Honourary Life Membership 2016
Welcomed as an Honourary Life Member at the 66th Annual Convention. An international folk artisan and writer who joined the Society in 1990 and tirelessly promoted leathercraft. She died on 24 February 2021.
Ontario Volunteer Service Award 2005
Ontario Volunteer Service Award recipient (London). Named on p6 of the Summer 2005 newsletter as the "2005 OVSA Recipient."

Awards

Allan Foss Workshop Award 1996
Craftsman Ribbon 1991–2011
Leather 2010 Honourable Mention 2010
Salon Ribbon 1991–2011

Demonstrations given

Leather Mache demonstrations 1993
44th Annual
From 43rd Annual Meeting 1993 — programme, Royal Resort, Fenelon Falls.
Fish leather talk (with David McPherson) 1998
48th Annual
From Summer 1998, page 9.
Jewellery Making (with Carol McLean) 2003
53rd Annual
From Spring 2003, page 4.

Where this comes from

This name in the index of people →