2003 NAN Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Peg Laflam earned her B.A. Degree in Graphic and Textile Art at the University of New Hampshire in 1988, long after she was already an established teacher of the needlearts. In her earlier years she had studied languages at Cedar Crest College and in the Translators Institute at the University of Heidelberg. Later she spent two years of teaching English as a foreign language at the Iranian Military Academy in Teheran, Iran. She also learned Farsi, an absolute necessity when trying to negotiate the mundane activities of life in Tehran decades ago.

Turkoman Rug with Arab Figure by Peg Laflam, 1984

Peg received her Certification in Canvaswork Level II from the Valentine Museum (nowthe National Academy of Needlearts) in 1982, as one of 5 graduates in the “class the stars fell upon.” Upon completion of Level II she was awarded the Louise Downing Scholarship to pursue her Honors research and this culminated in her book, Turkoman Rugs, A Study of the Rugs Woven by the Turkoman Tribes of Central Asia.

Peg was invited to be a NAN counselor, and was later appointed to the Board of Directors where she served as Director of Teacher Certification, and later Director of Education which is NAN’s highest office.

She was selected numerous times for the faculty the American Needlepoint Guild (ANG) National Seminars, the Embroiderers’ Guild of America (EGA) National Seminars, Callaway Gardens School of Needleart, NAN Assemblies, and taught extensively for regional seminars and art guilds in the United States and Canada.

Peg came from an artistic and talented family with two grandmothers who were accomplished needlewomen and a father who could “do anything.” The skills of her ancestors were handed down to Peg. She spent her years as a young mother living 20 miles from the Elsa Williams School and this became her creative outlet during those demanding times.

She was blessed with infinite curiosity, always eager to try something different, to experiment. She joked that she had trouble knitting a pair of socks because the second one is supposed to be just like the first.

As a teacher, lecturer and designer, Peg Laflam specialized in an approach to color and design that develops the creativity within each student. She was the author of four ANG correspondence courses on Color and Design and designed three needlework primers sold in museum shops. She completed a series of designs for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, which were used in altar frontals, lectern falls, stoles and banners in 140 churches in that state.

Peg liked to use painted fabric, painted papers, and fabric marbling as a basis for developing an understanding of the color and design potential in the creation of unique fabrics and papers which can be used in stitching, quilting, wearable art and collage. Her work is in private collections all over the US and in the Gallery of Art and Design at North Carolina State University.