Maine Programs

Haystack continues to develop new programs to serve people on the local level as well. Haystack's High School Programs are some of the other outreach programs that Haystack offers, and largely subsidizes, for residents of its home state and local communities.

Plates made by students in Kari Radasch's clay workshop during Student Craft Institute 2011.

Student Craft Institute is a three-day studio session for approximately 70 Maine high school students from as many schools throughout the state, who work with noted New England artists. This year was the 28th annual Student Craft Institute. The program welcomes high school juniors, from throughout the state, who have been identified as particularly gifted in the arts, to work in the studios on Haystack’s award-winning campus. Participants include students from a number of isolated rural communities, which is an important aspect of the program for the opportunity it provides to youngsters from different backgrounds to discover that they have common interests and can support one another in work undertaken together.

Students from local high schools work closely with their instructors in Haystack's studios. Haystack just had its 28th Student Craft Institute.

For more than 25 years, close to 1,000 Maine high school students have attended Haystack's Student Craft Institute. In 2011 there were eighty participants, which included sixty-six students, six instructors, six technical assistants and two administrators, joined in this year’s program.

This year's faculty included: Sarah Doremus (jewelry) and Susan Webster (printmaking) of Deer Isle, Maine; Dereck Glaser (blacksmithing) of Auburn, Maine; Matt Hutton (wood) of Portland, Maine; Elin Noble (shibori) of New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Kari Radasch (clay) of Westbrook, Maine.

Haystack’s 2011 Student Craft Institute was supported by the Betterment Fund, Maine Community Foundation, the Quimby Family Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and by Haystack’s Program Endowment Fund.

Studio Based Learning is a three-day studio session for up to 70 high school students from three schools in communities surrounding Deer Isle. The objectives of Studio Based Learning include: demonstrating that students who work intensively and at their own pace can develop a renewed sense of learning as well as their own potential; and creating a bridge, through the crafts, between fine arts and industrial arts instruction that fosters an appreciation of both.

Having intensive studio time is essential to Haystack's teen programs. Students worked on printmaking in the graphics studio during 2011 Studio Based Learning.

The 2011 workshops were led by Dan Bouthot (printmaking), Eddie Dominguez (clay), Tucker Houlihan (lighting/mixed media), Marc Maiorana (blacksmithing), Chris Leith (textiles), and Ellen Wieske (metals). Sixty-four students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School and George Stevens Academy and the Blue Hill Harbor School, Blue Hill participated in this year's program.

Students were shaping tin and other materials to make jewelry and more, during the 2011 metals workshop.

The Haystack Mentors Program is a follow-up activity of Studio Based Learning, which links local high school students with area artists who incorporate the studio experience into local arts curricula throughout the school year. Mentorships provide an intensive educational environment - the mentor concept is frequently cited as a great way to engage adolescents - one that not only can increase students aspirations, but provide an integrated and challenging educational experience. Each year the Student Mentor Program culminates with an exhibition of student and mentor work at Haystack's Center for Community Programs.

Students gain valuable experience working in professional studios with artist mentors.

From January – early April, 2012 Haystack is holding its 14th annual Student Mentor Program in which students work with area artist mentors in an individualized and intensive setting. Over forty students from three area high schools – Deer Isle-Stonington, George Stevens Academy, and the Blue Hill Harbor School – are participating in ten workshops over several weekends, working work with eleven professional artists – with nine workshops in artists’ studios and one at Haystack’s Center for Community Programs.

The 2012 mentors included: Siri Beckman (printmaking/wood engraving), Mark Bell (porcelain clay/wheel-throwing), Bruce Bulger (drawing and woodworking), Sarah Doremus (metals), Sihaya Hopkins (glass beadmaking), Mary Howe & Susan Webster (gelatin prints/paste paper/jewelry), Chris Leith (weaving), Amelia Poole (felting), Farrell Ruppert (blacksmithing), and Ellen Wieske (metals). The Student Mentor Program is coordinated by Dan Bouthot.

Weaving in Chris Leith's Sedgwick, Maine studio.

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