BC Achievement is honoured to celebrate the 2020 awardees of the Carter Wosk Applied Art + Design program announced earlier this week and we look forward to celebrating their accomplishments in the weeks and months ahead. It is a good time to consider how design impacts our life especially during these challenging times and we are reminded of Dr. Yosef Wosk’s reflections:
“Applied design balances function, aesthetics and often economic success. It enhances not just the use of objects but the quality of life”.
His remarks to the 2019 awardees address the discussion around what distinguishes art from design and how the Carter Wosk program unites them both:
“The artist, the fine artist, the free artist, the pure artist operates more perhaps as a shaman, as a revolutionary, as a transformer and as a lover. Whereas the applied artists’ work is more often thought of as domesticated, as tamed, as practical, as ritualized. Perhaps the greatest champion and master of applied art and design was Willam Morris, the author, the designer, the printer and the seller of this book from the Kelmscott Press 130 years ago. One of his most famous statements, ‘If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it, have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’. There are two different things he’s brought together as we have brought together tonight art and design. ‘Know’ means to understand; it’s a rational idea, it’s logic, it’s most often related to practical design. And ‘believe’ is more transcendent, intuitive, the pure art. Those who we celebrate this evening are among the few, the rare, the best who are both artists and designers, mystics and manufacturers. You are the hybrid few who bridge both worlds and allow the rest of us to cross between otherwise unreachable dimensions.”
Congratulations again to the 2020 Awardees! We look forward to sharing your stories of excellence to inspire achievement.
BC Achievement is grateful for the generosity and ongoing support of the Yosef Wosk Family Foundation. The Carter Wosk Award is named in honour of BC philanthropist, academic and visionary Yosef Wosk, Ph.D., OBC and Sam Carter, BC educator, designer and curator.