Rug Hooking Artist of the Year

2014

Submitted by Sibyl Osicka

HRMNA is pleased to announce this year’s honorees for the “Rug Hooking Artist of the Year” for Canada and the United States.

This is the second year such an appointment is being made. The winners are chosen because of their special attributes and their contribution to the contemporary advancement of the art of rug hooking and its gradual transformation over three centuries of development in North America. Such provides us with an annual assessment of rug hooking in comparison to an early stage of hooking and offers an opportunity to learn more about the amazing talents that exist in the art.

Thanks to both artists for their generosity in sharing their art with us for the 2014 summer season.

Our Canadian “Rug Hooking Artist of the Year” is Trish Johnson from Toronto, Ontario. Trish has been hooking since 1988. She was self-taught for the first four rugs and then joined the Georgetown rug hooking group. She has taken many hooking workshops and belongs to the teacher’s branch of the Ontario Hooking Craft Guild, the Georgetown Rug Hooking Guild and the Upper Toronto Hooking Guild.

Trish hooks rugs about places that are important to her family history, trying to answer questions about what “home” means to her. Home is where the heart is and all of her rugs are about those things and events that are dear to her heart. She designs her own patterns, mostly from her own photographs; dyes most of her own wool (especially the skies) and likes to use some recycled wool from Goodwill. Trish has been featured in Rug Hooking magazine’s “A Celebration of Hand Hooked Rugs”.

Our American “Rug Hooking Artist of the Year” is Sibyl Osicka from Parma, Ohio. Sibyl’s introduction to rug hooking began in 1982 because she wanted to make a Victorian style rug for her living room. By 1985, she was sponsored for the Pearl McGown Teacher’s Workshop. Sibyl became accredited in 1989, and was asked to teach two different workshops that year and has been teaching since. She has traveled throughout the USA and Canada teaching and displaying her work. She continues to study and expand her knowledge in all aspects of the art.

She currently is a member of the Pearl McGown guild, Emerald#5; ATHA; and Tighr; and completed her second accreditation in 2003 as a McGown instructor. Sibyl also mentors students and teachers, and has taught classes over the internet. For more information on Sibyl please visit her website: https://sibylosicka.com/