CWA Lifetime Achievement Awards recognize those who have had a pioneering role in the field, artists who have demonstrated significant artistic accomplishment in their work, and curators and others who have promoted and contributed to the field.

1998 Bob Stocksdale - Collectors of Wood Art named Bob Stocksdale, the grand old man of wood turning, the first recipient of CWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. Bob was a conscientious objector during World War II and was sent to several camps doing forestry work. While at the camps, he was able to procure a lathe and began turning bowls. In the early 1960’s, he developed a market for “decorative” bowls with exotic woods and became very interested in the International Wood Collector’s Society, which collects samples of different woods from around the world.
For Bob, each piece of wood carried its own story and identity. Through the inclusion of his work in major museum collections and exhibitions, as well as his participation in workshops and symposia, Bob has been a major influence on artists working in wood. It is said he would create two hundred bowls a year in his studio. His work and that of his wife, Kay Sekimachi, who is a fiber artist, was featured in an exhibition titled “Marriage in Form: Kay Sekimachi and Bob Stocksdale.” Bob died in 2004.

1999 Rude Osolnik - Collectors of Wood Art named Rude Osolnik as the 1999 recipient of CWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Rude Osolnik, teacher and artist, inspired two generations of wood turners. Rude learned wood turning in high school. He taught Industrial Arts at Berea College in Kentucky for 40 years. He made Berea, Kentucky, the capital of wood turning for over 40 years. In 1938, he married Berea graduate Daphne Francis, who was his partner in Osolnik Originals until her death in 1988. Rude was a leader of the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild and helped found the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen. His work is represented in museums around the country. Rude died in 2001.

2000 Michael Monroe - For over 35 years, Michael Monroe has been a vibrant and influential figure in contemporary American craft. For 21 years, he was associated with the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. He served as curator from 1974, and in 1986, he became curator-in-charge, a position he held until 1995. In 1993, Monroe was invited by President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton to organize a collection of American craft for the White House to commemorate The Year of American Craft. After its initial presentation at the White House, the collection toured the United States for ten years and was documented in a book entitled The White House Collection of American Crafts. The collection currently resides at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Michael has won numerous awards, among them the Smithsonian Institution Outstanding Employee Award (1978, 1984, 1989 and 1995) and the NICHE Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Craft (1996). He was also selected as an Honorary Fellow at The American Craft Council College of Fellows (1995).
Michael is currently serving as Executive Director/Chief Curator of Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington.


2001 Jan Peters and Ray Leier - Ray Leier and Jan Peters, founders of del Mano Gallery in Los Angeles, California, have exhibited turned wood from the day they opened in 1973. In 1984, they presented their first national survey of wood, long before the field had found a national audience. Believing in the value of this art form and the importance of documentation to a young and growing field, Leier and Peters catalogued all gallery exhibitions of turned wood as well as authored a book to give a historical perspective on the subject.

2002 David Ellsworth - David Ellsworth received a masters degree in sculpture from the University of Colorado in 1973. He started the woodworking program at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. During the mid-1970’s, David designed a series of bent turning tools and the methods required for making the thin-walled hollow forms for which he is known worldwide. His first article, titled “Hollow Turning,” appeared in the May/June 1979 issue of Fine Woodworking magazine.
David is the founding member of the American Association of Woodturners, of which he was president from 1986-1991, and its first Honorary Lifetime Member. He has written over 50 articles on subjects related to wood turning and operates the Ellsworth School of Woodturning at his studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His works are included in the permanent collections of 20 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as private national and international collections. He has received fellowship grants from the National Endowment of Arts, The Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and the PEW Foundation and was recently honored as a Fellow of the American Craft Council.

2003 Albert LeCoff - Originally a woodworker and wood turner, Albert LeCoff evolved into one of the most active promoters of lathe turned art over the last 25 years. Starting in the 1970’s, LeCoff, with others, organized symposia, exhibitions and publications that drew wood turners together to learn from each other. He organized the “Gallery of Turned Objects: The First North American Turned Object Show” (1981), one of the first contemporary exhibitions that focused on fine wood turning.
In 1986, he co-founded the Wood Turning Center, a not-for-profit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  LeCoff created the “Challenge” exhibitions in 1987 to inspire artists to make new, innovative work regardless of the market place and coordinated the “Lathe-Turned Objects: An International Exhibition” in 1988, which introduced museum audiences to this art form.
2005 Edward “Bud” Jacobson - Bud Jacobson, 1922 - 2005, was a prominent Arizona attorney and arts advocate. This award recognizes his impact on contemporary wood art through inspiring artists and collectors and by providing the opportunity to address the aesthetic of wood vessels in the broader art community. In 1985, his wood art collection toured the nation, which led to the publication of The Art of Turned-Wood Bowls: A Gallery of Contemporary Masters -- And More. His collection was subsequently donated to Arizona State University Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona.
As a truly passionate collector and arts benefactor, he did not keep track of his donations. “I’ve never thought about the dollar value of what I’ve given away. ...Giving away art opens up a space on my wall for something else.”

2006 William Hunter - William Hunter entered the field of contemporary wood sculpture in its formative stages in the early 1970’s. His early forms in wood exploited the material’s rich expressive potential and advanced a new direction for the entire field of contemporary wood sculpture. Through the years since, he has led the field as the medium evolved from its foundations in traditional wood turning practices to its emergence as a vehicle for artistic invention. Today, Bill is considered among the foremost artist leaders and visionaries in this important field.
2007 Robyn Horn - CWA honors Robyn as an innovative wood artist and as a founder of CWA. Robyn also is recognized as a national leader in the promotion and support of craft art in all media.
Robyn has been collecting and making art simultaneously for over 25 years, and her work is represented in museums around the country, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Art + Design in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. She is on advisory commmittees for the Wharton Esherick Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design. She is a member of the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Board and received the McColl Award from the Founder’s Circle of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in 2007 and the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award from the American Association of Woodturners in 2000.

2009 - Arthur and Jane Mason - Jane Mason is an artist and has exhibited her paintings and drawings at the Cosmos Club in DC, the Bethesda Public Library as well as the Corcoran Gallery. She is also a ceramic artist and has done several commissions. She taught art to adults and children for almost 20 years and ran a computer consulting business for 14 years. She is a continuing volunteer for the Smithsonian Women’s Committee and has served on the Board of the James Renwick Alliance, the Board of Visitors of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, the CWA board, and she chaired the Smithsonian Craft Show in 1996. 

Arthur served in the military aboard a destroyer in the Pacific from 1944-1946. He went to Harvard and Columbia Law School and practiced law until 1999 when he retired. He has served on the board of the Renwick Alliance, the Woodturning Center, the CWA, the American Craft Council, and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design. Jane and Arthur have received the McColl Award for Lifetime Achievement to the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in 2003 and were selected as Honorary Lifetime Members of the AAW in 2004. 

Arthur and Jane are as committed to the field of wood as anyone could be. They have hosted artists in their homes, they have supported exhibitions and catalogues, and they have contributed to museums and helped them raise funds. They have amassed one of the finest collections of turned wood in the country and they continue to show a real passion for the artists who make the work.