6Maine Programs

Haystack's exhibition series is an outgrowth of Haystack’s commitment to supporting the dynamic work being done by makers of contemporary craft and to the creative process implicit in that. Haystack’s Center for Community Programs in Deer Isle village provides a year-round gallery and educational facility - a renovated barn with a 760 square foot space for exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and community gatherings, which is winterized and handicapped accessible. The Center opened in June of 2007 and has featured exhibitions of Haystack’s Student Mentor Program and Beaded Blessings, an international traveling exhibition, as well as community-based workshops. The initial summer exhibition, Haystack: Creative Process, opened in June 2008 and was the first of a new ongoing summer series. Each summer, the school mounts new exhibitions documenting Haystack’s impact on contemporary craft over time; significant shows that establish the school's Center for Community Programs as a leading exhibitor of significant work by American craft makers.

Concurrently during the summer season, Haystack continues its exhibitions and lectures at its campus. These events, free and open to the public, attract a cross section of island residents and summer visitors, as well as our workshop participants. These exhibitions are an incredible resource for the community—featuring work by internationally distinguished makers—and also provide an opportunity to learn about these makers’ creative process as well. Exhibitions at the Center for Community Programs are open on Wednesday and Friday-Sunday from 1:00–5:00 p.m. throughout the summer season, with informal receptions held every other Sunday afternoon. From time to time, we also schedule visits by appointment.

Summer 2012

This summer Haystack will mount two exhibitions celebrating distinctly different mediums and traditions: Amy Stacey Curtis: Drawings About Time, (May 27-July 7) and Ragged Beauty (July 15-September 1). The first exhibition will provide exposure for Maine artist Amy Stacey Curtis’s work to a national and international audience of Haystack attendees, as well as Island residents and visitors to the area, while Ragged Beauty provides a rare opportunity to see a world-class collection of Japanese textiles in Maine, curated by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, one of the foremost experts in shibori techniques. 

20 hours by Amy Stacey Curtis, 2010. Charcoal and graphite on paper, 22 1/2" x 22 1/2".

Amy Stacey Curtis: Drawings About Time will feature her recent work, 27 Hours. Amy, who is one of Maine’s most innovative artists, first came to Haystack in 1991 as a participant in the school’s Student Craft Institute, a program for gifted Maine artists who are in their junior year in high school. That experience was a catalyst in her decision to make her art a life-long pursuit. She studied studio art at the University of Maine at Orono and art and psychology at Norwich University, Vermont.

A multi-disciplinary artist, Amy Stacey Curtis is best known for her interactive ‘solo-biennial’ installations that are part of a ‘solo-biennial’ project—an 18-year art-making project that she began in 2000 and will conclude in 2016—involving nine solo exhibitions. These theme-based installations, which have included Movement (2002), Sound (2006), and Time (2010), are mounted in mill spaces throughout the state of Maine. Amy Stacey Curtis has traditionally used drawings as a way to support her installation projects but has recently been exploring drawing as a medium separate from this work. These drawings will be the focus of the exhibition at Haystack and will provide insight into how one of Maine’s emerging artists uses drawing as a means of self exploration and expression, while also conveying the transformative power of art and the creative process. Curtis’s 27 Hours were included in the 2011 exhibition, Emerging Dis/Order, held at the Bates College Museum of Art and the Museum’s contribution to the statewide visual arts initiative, The Maine Drawing Project. amystaceycurtis.com

Ragged Beauty will feature a selection of traditional Japanese textiles that collectively explore the themes of recycling and repair. The exhibition is curated by the renowned textile artist Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada and the work will be on loan from her private collection. The exhibition features boro—Japanese  bedding covers and other functional textiles created in the 19th and early 20th centuries from recycled indigo-dyed cotton and bast fiber cloth and repurposed textiles and rags (boro is the Japanese word for "rag" or "tattered" and the process of boro represents the transformation of inconsequential material into something precious and useful). Each boro on display in Ragged Beauty is an assemblage with a unique shape, size, and history--these contemporary interpretations of repair and reuse create a bridge from the past into the future, reflecting traditional values as applied to new forms. The opportunity to view boro and learn about the original use of individual items in the show is unique.

Yoshiko Wada has taught four times at Haystack, most recently in 2005; this summer she will be teaching a Shibori workshop, Boro Transformed: Patched, Pieced, Stitched, and Dyed in Greenest Indigo, during Haystack’s fourth session, July 15-27. yoshikowada.wordpress.com

A link to images of work included in the shows, along with the narratives, will be added to this page once each exhibition opens.

Haystack's 2012 Summer Exhibitions are sponsored by Bar Harbor Bank & Trust and are also supported by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission's Great Works program, and Haystack's Program Endowment Fund.

Spring 2012

The 2012 Student Mentor Program included two Jewelry workshops.

Haystack’s 14th annual Student Mentor Program, in which local teens work with area artist mentors in their studios, began in mid-January and concluded in early April with an exhibition of student and mentor work at Haystack’s Center for Community Programs. An opening reception was held on Friday, April 27, from 3:00–6:00pm. The exhibition will remain on view until May 8.

Thirty-nine students from three area high schools participated in ten workshops, with eleven professional artists, over several weekends.

Haystack’s 2012 Student Mentor Program was supported by a SMART (Schools Make Art Relevant Today) grant from the Maine Arts Commission, and the Ann and Chuck Holland, Betsy Rowland, and Belvedere Funds of Haystack’s Program Endowment.

Summer - Fall 2011

Artstream Ceramic Library

A Mark Pharis cup sits on a custom-made box in which the piece travels.

From November 15-December 15 the Artstream Ceramic Library was at Haystack’s Center for Community Programs. Haystack trustee Alleghany Meadows helped develop this social-outreach project whose mission is to connect contemporary functional ceramics with ordinary people. Similar in structure to a literature-based library, the Artstream Ceramic Library loans out unique handmade cups made by thirteen nationally-known potters, for a period of seven days. A vital component of the social exchange aspect of this venture is that the Artstream Ceramic Library asks that the borrower to take a digital photograph of the cup in use, and encourages including other art forms as well, such as music, video, and visual art. The photographs and art will then be posted online at Artstream.

The converted Airstream travels around the country displaying cups that are available on loan.

The library, developed by Haystack trustee Alleghany Meadows and others, is an outgrowth of the Artstream Nomadic Gallery, a 30-foot 1967 Airstream Sovereign land yacht that was completely remodeled into an exhibition space in 2001 by Meadows. Based in Carbondale, Colorado, it has traveled from Los Angeles to New York, putting contemporary ceramic art on the street.  

The Ziegler House is a weekend and vacation home on eighty acres of open Connecticut farmland. The assemblage of three barn-like volumes, interconnected by a common entryway, is nestled into an intersection of 18th century tree-lined rubble stone walls. This project is the recipient of the 1983 AIA/New York State Distinguished Architectural Citation, and has been published in several architectural books on residential design. Architect: Bruce Fowle, FAIA, LEED, Founding Principal, FXFOWLE.

Haystack’s summer exhibition, Haystack’s Architecture: Vision & Legacy, at its Center for Community Programs in Deer Isle village, opened July 3rd and remained on view through September 11th, and by appointment from September 12 - October 15. The exhibition was organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Haystack's campus, in addition to other events marking this important milestone. Falmouth, Maine architect Carol A. Wilson, FAIA is curating the exhibition.

Haystack's Architecture: Vision & Legacy examines the impact—through drawings, models, and writings by leading architects in the US—of Haystack's architecture and its architect, Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915-2004). Haystack’s Deer Isle campus was recognized as an outstanding example of Modernist architecture by the American Institute of Architects in 1994 with the presentation of the organization's Twenty-Five Year Award. It is one of only forty-one buildings in the country to achieve this distinction. Others include Rockefeller Center, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Guggenheim Museum, and the East Building of the National Gallery. In 2006 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a building of national significance. Ed Barnes was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 2007.

Rendering of the Ziegler House.

In her curator’s statement, Carol Wilson talked about the influence of Barnes’s work and vision on generations of American architects, including herself. An excerpt read, “As a Maine architect, Haystack's architecture sets a standard, not only for timelessness, but also as an example, even in 2011, of problems we should be solving and innovative ways of seeing and building. The inspiration and lessons learned from Barnes and his work at Haystack are the basis for this summer's exhibition.”

The show featured designs by Randy Brown Architects; James Carpenter Design Associates Inc.; Mark Cavagnero Associates; Elliott + Elliott Architecture; Bruce S. Fowle, FAIA, FXFOWLE; Christopher Glass, Architect; Peter Hamilton ARCHITECTS; Toshiko Mori, Architect PLLC; Bruce Norelius Studio; STELLEARCHITECTS; Studio Ma; and Carol A. Wilson, FAIA.

In addition to the exhibition, Carol Wilson gave an Artist’s Talk on Sunday, July 24th in the Center’s gallery.

Read statements from all exhibition participants.

Read about our Past Exhibitions