The Golden Fleece Award was founded in 2001 through a bequest by Irish artist and weaving educator, Lillias Mitchell (1915-2000). She created our friend organisation, the Irish Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers. The mission of the Golden Fleece Award is to provide resources for practising contemporary visual artists and makers to innovate and develop their artistic vision.
The annual award supports artists working in all forms of visual, craft and applied arts at critical junctures of their careers. Applicants should reside in, or originally from, the island of Ireland. Since its inception in 2002, over 100 applicants have been shortlisted for, or have received, a Golden Fleece Award.
This year, there are two main awards worth €10,000 each, along with smaller Merit or special awards:
- Category 1: Visual Art
- Category 2: Craft + Applied Art
Despite the Award being open equally to creative practitioners working in all forms of visual, craft, and applied arts across the two categories, historically, the majority of applications for the Golden Fleece Award have been submitted by visual artists. While the Trustees of the Award welcome these, they are also keen to continue encouraging applications to Category 2 from craftspeople, designers and makers.
For 2025, just under 290 applications were received for the 2025 Award.
- 165 for Category 1: Visual Art and 122 for Category 2: Craft + Applied Art.
For 2024, just over 240 applications were received for the Award.
- 197 for Category 1: Visual Art and <only> 45 for Category 2: Craft + Applied Art!
Note: The number of applicants is much smaller than that for the Arts Council of Ireland’s Agility award. According to the Arts Council’s Twitter/X, “We received a record number of 3,279 applications for our 2024 Agility Award”.
One can also read past shortlisted Golden Fleece Award submissions from individual artists and craftspeople to gain an understanding of the judging. It is fascinating and inspiring to see. https://www.goldenfleeceaward.com/artists
For example, here is a link to the submission of 2024 shortlisted artist and tapestry weaver, Frances Crowe – https://www.goldenfleeceaward.com/artists/frances-crowe
And here is a link to functional basketmaker Rosemary Kavanagh’s submission –https://www.goldenfleeceaward.com/artists/rosemary-kavanagh
So, feltmakers and other textile folks in Ireland, please apply for the award!
Deadline: Friday, the 28th of November, 2025, at 5 PM.
For full details and to apply, visit their website – https://www.goldenfleeceaward.com/award/about
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