JamFactory Lifetime Honourees

This highly regarded honour is awarded annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to JamFactory and the wider craft and design community. It recognises the important role that administrators, curators, legislators and other non-makers play in creating a dynamic craft and design sector.

Dick Richards
2017 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

Dick Richards was instrumental in the establishment of the JamFactory – he was the person who the South Australian Premier Don Dunstan sent on an international fact-finding mission to build the case for establishing the JamFactory and subsequently advocated for it and served on its Board for the first decade.

Dick began his career studying and working as a trainee at Chrysler Australia in the 1950s and subsequently studied at the South Australian School of Art and established a reputation as a craft jeweller. He has over 50 years experience as a teacher, writer, curator, researcher and consultant in the visual arts and crafts.

He was employed in various roles at the Art Gallery of South Australia from 1965 to 2000, including as Curator of Decorative Arts. From 1990 until his retirement in 2000, he was the Gallery’s Curator of Asian Art.

Winnie Pelz AM
2018 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

Winnie Pelz was appointed as Executive Chair and Artistic Director of the Jam Factory Workshops in 1981. Winnie continued to have a significant impact on the South Australian arts community through the undertaking of senior management roles for the SA Department for the Arts; Living Arts Centre; and St Peters College Foundation.

Winnie has also served on numerous Government, public and private sector Boards, including the Adelaide Convention Centre, the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust, Film Australia, the Australian String Quartet, SA Country Arts Trust, Channel 9 Telethon, the National Australia Day Council and the National Library of Australia.

A celebrated artist, her textile mixed media and tapestry weaving work is held in public collections, including the Art Gallery of SA, the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, the Ararat Gallery textile collection and Artbank. She has been a prize winner in the Waterhouse Art Prize and a finalist for the Fleurieu Art Prize.

Jennifer Layther
2019 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

After completing a teaching qualification in Adelaide, Jennifer Layther studied textile design at RMIT in Melbourne. The RMIT course provided a strong industry interface and trained designers for industry but also had a strong arts and craft focus. Jennifer returned to Adelaide in 1982 to run the Knitted Textiles Workshop at JamFactory, which she did until 1990. Her success in this role contributed to international acclaim for the organisation with sales and distribution into international markets and acquisitions by major public institutions.

Following her time at JamFactory Jennifer worked across tertiary teaching, collaborative art in architecture projects, advertising styling and ultimately arts administration.

During her subsequent 25-year (and still going) career at arts South Australia, where she is now Director, Jennifer has been a strong and influential advocate for JamFactory within both State and Federal arts bureaucracies including assisting in securing Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy funding.

Steve Grieve
2020 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

Steve has been a prominent and influential architect in South Australia and a strong advocate for the arts here since the 1980s. He was a key protagonist in securing the current Lion Arts Centre site as an arts precinct and was the architect of the JamFactory building which was officially opened in February 1992.

Through his architectural practice Steve has supported JamFactory through commissioning numerous works and in 2013 Grieve Gillett Architects undertook the design of the Seppeltsfield facility on a largely pro-bono basis. Steve was also one of the first Medici Collective Members and remained involved until his retirement to Goolwa in 2017.

Kay Lawrence AM
2021 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

Kay Lawrence’s contribution to the craft and design sector in Australia has taken many forms. For forty years between 1980 and 2020, she was an active member on the boards of many Australian professional organisations and government committees engaged in developing and promoting craft and design practice. As an educator she was actively involved for fifty years in shaping the development of craft and design education in Australia in both the tertiary sector and in the community. In 2002 she was the first woman appointed to Head the South Australian School of Art in its almost 150-year history. More recently she served on the Board of Governors of the Adelaide Central School of Art and chaired their Academic Committee (2014–2016). Alongside her work in higher education she worked in the community teaching woven tapestry at workshops in the USA and Australia. Across her career Lawrence developed a long standing and collaborative relationship with JamFactory including teaching and exhibiting at the Payneham Rd premises and developing nationally significant weaving exhibitions, workshops and symposia, culminating in her appointment to the Board in 2011.

Leone Furler
2022 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

Loene Furler has been a practising and exhibiting artist for decades whilst lecturing at ACARTS, NASA and other art schools. Loene was previously a Ministerial Adviser to the Minister for Arts (from 1989 during the Bannon Labour Govt) and CEO of JamFactory (1994-96), Chair of Experimental Art Foundation, Deputy Chair of National Association for the Visual Arts and member of Craft Australia Board amongst others. Music is also important to Loene and she played in a band for over ten years.

Jeff Mincham AM
2023 JamFactory Lifetime Honouree

Jeff Mincham is a leading figure in Australian ceramics with a career spanning more than four decades. Mincham has presented over 80 solo exhibitions around the world since 1976 and has been an active member of the community. He was Head of JamFactory Ceramics Studio from 1979-83 and has been on numerous advisory panels, committees and Boards including Country Arts SA, Craft Australia, Visions of Australia, Australia Council and Crafts Council Australia. His artwork is held in thousands of private collections, over 100 permanent public collections and all major state and regional galleries in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Parliament House, Canberra. His international collecting bodies include the Australian Chancery, Saudi Arabia; Aberyswyth Arts Centre, Wales; National Galleries of Malaysia and Taiwan; State Collection of Hawaii; and the Silber, Stephen Alpert and Johnson Collections, USA.