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AWARDS & RECOGNITION |
John Fleming Award in Decorative Arts Writing
The John Fleming Award honours his lasting contribution to Canadian decorative arts scholarship and writing.
This $1,000 annual juried award recognizes an exceptional example of magazine writing on decorative arts in Canada. Decorative arts are creative works, often of a practical or useful nature, produced by a designer, craftsperson, artist, or amateur, which have aesthetic, cultural, or historical value.
The Canadian Society of Decorative Arts/Cercle canadien des arts décoratifs (CSDA/CCAD) publishes the article in Ornamentum magazine and on ornamentum.ca. Ornamentum critically addresses the aesthetics, meanings, traditions, and innovations of Canadian material culture in the areas of decorative arts and design for a general audience.
Recipients of John Fleming Award in Decorative Arts Writing (2026)
Sara Shields-Rivard and Victoria MacBeath win CSDA/CCAD John Fleming Award. These outstanding scholars represent two vital and complementary areas of research.
Shields-Rivard’s project offers a fresh perspective on the history of interior design and its documentation, while MacBeath’s work advances our understanding of Indigenous design, craft, and language revitalization through a decolonizing lens.
Look for the successful submissions in our upcoming issue of Ornamentum.
Read about the authors here. Past winners and their submissions can be viewed below.
About John A. Fleming
John A. Fleming, Professor Emeritus of the French, Museum Studies, and Comparative Literature departments at the University of Toronto, passed away in April 2022. He studied at McMaster (BA), University of Toronto (MA), and Harvard University (PhD). John’s academic research and publications have earned multiple awards, and his influence in the field of decorative arts in Canada is substantial. His books include Ukrainian Pioneer Furniture, with Michael Rowan and Halya Kluchko (1992); Les meubles peints du Canada français 1700-1840 (1994); Folk Furniture of Canada’s Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites and Ukrainians, with Michael Rowan (2004); and Canadian Folk Art to 1950, with Michael Rowan and James A. Chambers (2012). John also played an important role in the Canadian Society of Decorative Arts: he was the editor and publisher of Ornamentum magazine from its inauguration in 2006 to 2018 and a CSDA director from 1990 until his retirement in 2019.
Interested in donating to the JFA fund? Please visit our donation page here.
| Housing a Home: Elsie de Wolfe's Photo Albums of/as Interiors (2026) Shields-Rivard examines American interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe's (Lady Mendl) (1865-1950) photo albums as an archive. Shields-Rivard argues that Wolfe's photo albums document and preserve, in addition to constructing and housing, the domestic space of Villa Trianon. Sara Shields-Rivard is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at Queen’s University whose research examines feminist interventions in design history, as seen in Dwelling at the Margins of Empire: Global Perspectives of Home (2025). |
| Documenting Craft: Veronica Atwin, Basketry, and Language Revitalization in New Brunswick (2026) MacBeath’s work analyzes Veronica Atwin's (née Soloman (1922-1989) work as a splint ash basket weaver in Bilijik or Kingsclear, New Brunswick in tandem with Atwin's significant contributions to Wolastoqey language revitalization and Indigenous language rights. Victoria MacBeath is a PhD candidate in the department of art history at Concordia University in Montréal. Her research considers the intersections of care ethics and craft-making practices in 20th-century New Brunswick. |
 | Threads of Resistance: Quilting Freedom Along the Underground Railroad (2025) Alyssa Nolan discusses the 2024 exhibition The Secret Codes: African Nova Scotian Quilts, curated by David Woods and organized by the Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia. |
 | Liz Magor’s Blanket Series: The Hudson’s Bay Blanket and Material Identity (2024) Isabelle Segui acknowledges several levels of interpretation of Magor’s work, such as the context of Hudson’s Bay blankets within Indigenous communities, consumer culture, and nationalism.Download a copy of the full news release. |
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| Decolonizing Museum Spaces: Decorative Art as a Vessel for Disruption (2023) Cheyenne Mapplebeck addresses significant ideas on the importance of diversity and representation in art, and offers a unique perspective on how BIPOC artists continue to challenge colonial influence in gallery spaces through their contemporary practices. |
