Leather '84 — the call for entries
← The Society · the Society's biennial show, announced, delayed and judged — Autumn 1983 to July 1984
Drawn from two issues of the newsletter: the Autumn 1983 “Special Notices” page (page 5) and the Summer 1984 issue's Annual Meeting minutes and members' notices (pages 1 and 16). The show is named elsewhere in the run as well: Spring 1983 p. 8, Summer 1983 p. 7, Autumn 1983 p. 1, Winter 1983–84 p. 8, Spring 1984 pp. 8, 14 and 16, and Winter 1984–85 p. 10.
One page of business, in the autumn before
The Autumn 1983 newsletter's Special Notices page opens with the next Annual Meeting — “ANNUAL MEETING - CSCL - 1984. PLACE: WOODSTOCK - Woodstock General Hospital Nurses Residence. DATES: APRIL 13-15th… Dinner, Meeting and luncheon will be held at the Nurses Residence, which is on Wellington Street East. LODGING: Rooms for the Annual will be arranged at the Woodstock Inn” — and moves straight to that year's inter-branch competition: “Entries for the Weston Trophy Competition are due in by MARCH 23rd.-10 a.m. Judging for the Weston Trophy will take place on MARCH 23rd starting at 10:00 a.m. We trust that ALL branches will attempt to field a full entry this year. This is a good trial ground for pieces and styles planned for the Leather '84 Show!!” (Autumn 1983, page 5.) The Society was already thinking of the Weston Trophy as a rehearsal for the bigger show to come.
- Announced on the Autumn 1983 “Special Notices” page, sharing space with the 1984 Annual Meeting at Woodstock and that year's Weston Trophy entries
- Eligible pieces had to be made after the Leather '82 exhibition — one of a run of biennial shows this archive can trace from 1970 to 2010
- Judging moved to 25 May 1984, later than first planned, “due to summer vacations, etc.”
- Open only to members in good standing of the C.S.C.L.
- Opening ceremonies held Thursday 5 July 1984, at the Scarborough Civic Centre — confirmed in the Summer 1984 newsletter, by which time the show had already been judged
- Nine awards from the show are on record — the Society's own registry files them from the exhibition report printed in the booklet handed out at the 1985 Annual Meeting
“A tentative opening date”
The show's own notice follows directly beneath, headed simply “LEATHER '84”: “A tentaive opening date for Leather '84 has been set for July 5th but this will be confirmed and announced at a later date. HOWEVER!! ALL MEMBERS PLEASE NOTE!! Call For Entry forms will be sent out as soon as possible. Due to summer vacations, etc., the date for the judging of pieces entered in Leather '84 will be MAY 25th, 1984. PLACE OF EXHIBITION: SCARBOROUGH CIVIC CENTRE. ONLY MEMBERS in good standing of CSCL will be eligible for entry in this show, so please see that your dues are in in adequate time. Pieces may be entered that have been made AFTER the Leather'82 Exhibition. We are looking forward to a quality show this year, as we are aware of many excellent pieces created since that time. Watch for the Call for Entry…. we want YOUR entry!” (Autumn 1983, page 5; “tentaive” is the newsletter's own spelling and is left as printed.)
Leather '84 was not a one-off. The series runs from the Society's first Prestige Exhibition of 1970 to Leather 2010. This archive's newsletters name a Leather show in nearly every even year from the early 1970s — '72, '73, '74, '76, '78, '80, '82, '84, '86, '88, '90, on to '92, '94 and '98 — and the newsletters carry Leather 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2010; the series is called the Society's “Biennial Exhibition” elsewhere in the run. The eligibility rule above, work made since the previous show, is the mechanism that kept each one new. No page in this collection yet tells the story of the series as a whole; this page is only the one show's own announcement.
One more request, on the same page
The Special Notices page closes with a smaller ask, for the Annual Meeting rather than the show: “DEMONSTRATORS FOR ANNUAL MEETING- 1984. Please let Carol McLean, 555 Huron St., Woodstock Ont. N4S 7B1 know of the subjects (and, if possible) demonstrators requested for the Annual. We apologize that this is late…” (Autumn 1983, page 5.) Carol McLean, a Fellow of the Society and by then a veteran Annual Meeting organiser, is given the same Woodstock address here that this archive's own executive lists print for her in 1973, 1977 and 1978–79 — unchanged across a decade of notices.
Confirmed, and already judged, by July
The Society's 1984 Annual Meeting, held that April, looked ahead to the show as its own year's centrepiece. The minutes printed in the Summer 1984 newsletter record President Jack Meharg's report: “Leather'84 also will be the highlight of the summer, with opening ceremonies on July 5… at 8:00 p.m., at Scarborough City Centre, Hwy #401 and Mcgowan Rd.” (Summer 1984, page 1.) The tentative July date named the previous autumn had held.
A members' notice later in the same issue confirms the judging had gone ahead as planned, and adds the one further fact this collection holds — that the show, like the meeting, carried prizes of its own: “LEATHER '84. Our Biennial show will have been judged by the time this is received, and we hope that you will take the time to attend the opening, Thursday, JULY 5th, at SCARBOROUGH CITY CENTRE, Borough Dr., Hwy. # 401, at McGowan South, Scarborough, Ont. Awards will be presented at that time.” (Summer 1984, page 16.)
Nine awards, on record after all
The newsletters print no full report of the results; the 1985 Annual Meeting booklet does. Its report of the exhibition sets them down: Jean Hunter's box “Birds In Flight” took the Ontario Crafts Council Award for Most Original Design; Marg. Hunter's grey bag took the Mary Zatyko Memorial Award for Best Soft Leather Piece; Jean Pickering's black-and-grey filagree belt took the CSCL Executive Award for Most Functional Piece; Karla Van Horne's leather canteen took the Irva Ford Memorial Award for Best Moulded Work; Lillian Kay's “Water Babies,” a picture of three nudes, took the Anne Hook Memorial Award for Best Colour Work; and Gladys Riddell's leather jewel chest took the Society's own Judges Special Award. Madeleine Mitchell's miniature furniture, Rini Troendle's suede collar and Bea Austin's moulded brown purse each took a Leather '84 Honourable Mention.
Winter 1984–85 p. 10 records that “Both Bea and Karla took prizes at Leather'84 this year”.
From Autumn 1983 p5 and Summer 1984 pp1 and 16.
