Support Haystack

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts has raised $1,527,784, exceeding its $1.5 million goal for the Campaign for Haystack: Innovation and Community. The campaign’s purpose was to raise funds for renovations to the school’s Center for Community Programs and increase endowment funds for its community programs and its innovative national and international initiatives.

Planning for the campaign began in the spring of 2007. The catalyst for the largest fundraising effort in the school’s history was a bequest from the late Charlie Gailis, a Haystack Life Trustee, who provided funds to purchase the former Blue Heron Gallery property in Deer Isle village that had been owned by Haystack Trustee Mary Nyburg. The property is now the site of Haystack’s Center for Community Programs – a year-round administrative office and a gallery/workshop space. Establishing this facility in the heart of Deer Isle has allowed greater visibility and additional access to the school’s programs, which have been expanded for the Island community. These include workshops, exhibitions, and community-based artist residencies.

Gifts and pledges included: $467,000 from Haystack’s board; over $550,000 from Deer Isle, Stonington, and Blue Hill Peninsula residents; a $70,000 matching grant from the Maine Community Foundation’s Belvedere Traditional Handcrafts Fund; and over $440,000 in additional gifts from foundations and donors from throughout the US. Over $1.2 million will be invested in Haystack’s endowment to support programs ranging from the school’s intensive workshops for Maine high school students to its collaborations with other institutions like the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Haystack is fortunate to have had such generous support from trustees, friends, alumni, and foundations” said Stuart Kestenbaum, Haystack’s director. He added, “The money raised through this campaign ensures that the school can maintain its leadership role in craft education nationally and continue to contribute significantly to education on the Island and Blue Hill Peninsula as well."

We are thankful for the vision and generosity of our donors who have made this possible.

Campaign Background

Haystack has long been recognized for its leadership in craft education—and the campaign will make it possible for Haystack to continue to lead in this regard, by supporting both the breadth and depth of its programming. In addition to the core summer program, the school has developed intensive programs for Maine high school students and adults, local mentor programs for teens and adults, and community-based artists’ residencies. Providing programs for local residents, similar in content and quality to those being offered to individuals from around the world during our core sessions, is central to the school’s mission. At the same time Haystack has also taken a broader view of craft through symposia, retreats, and conferences that engage new audiences, collaborating with organizations like the MIT Media Lab, and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution to examine new trends and ideas.

While all of these programs have broken new ground for the school, none are self-supporting and are dependent on either grant support or are significantly subsidized by Haystack. The Campaign for Haystack: Innovation and Community, will ensure that these kinds of programs will have a stable financial base.

The Campaign Supports:

Renovations to the Center for Community Programs

Part of the campaign effort has been to raise the funds required for building renovations to the property, which consists of a barn attached to a home, built circa 1850. These renovations were designed by Haystack trustee Ann Grasso, who, along with many companies and individuals, contributed time to this effort. Renovations include:

• converting the home into administrative office space.
• renovating and winterizing the 600 square foot barn for exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and community gathering.
• the installation of the new handicapped accessible bathroom.
• constructing storage space and a connector to the administrative offices to the Center, which now serves as our new non-lending library of over 400 art books, as reported in the Fall 2008 Gateway.

Additional renovations will include:

• completing a guest bedroom.
• the addition of a dormer to the front room.
• re-roofing the front half of the office building.

Community Programs

The Maine Arts Commission has characterized Haystack as a “state treasure with a national reputation for quality” and our community programs offer dynamic learning experiences to Maine and Island residents. From workshops for adults from throughout Maine to mentor programs and community-based residencies on the Island and Blue Hill Peninsula, Haystack is making a vital connection with its communities. Annually over 400 Mainers from throughout the state participate in Haystack's workshops.

Programs include:

• Student Craft Institute, a three-day workshop for seventy high school students from throughout the state

• Studio Based Learning, a three-day  workshop in the fall for seventy high school students from George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill and Deer Isle-Stonington High School

• Student Mentor Program, a complement to Studio Based Learning, and provides an opportunity for forty high school students to have an in-depth studio experience working with artists in their studios

• Community-based artist residencies at our new Center for Community Programs

• Island Workshop, a one-day session at Haystack for Deer Isle and Blue Hill Peninsula residents, with half the spaces reserved for people who have never participated in a Haystack workshop

• Open Door, our season-ending workshop for adults from throughout the State

Innovative Programs

Haystack’s role as an innovator in craft education was recognized in 1987 when the American Craft Council gave the school its Gold Medal Institutional Award for “trailblazing leadership”. These programs continue to put Haystack at the forefront of craft research and education by looking at the craft field in a broader context, providing makers with time to pursue ideas, and involving leaders from other fields with our programs. 

Programs include:

• New Works is a five-day retreat limited to 55 participants who have taught at Haystack. New Works features open studios, and optional writing and movement workshops led by past visiting artists at Haystack.

• Symposia  address issues related to the hand and craft making within a broader context of other disciplines. Past symposia have included Digital Dialogues: Technology and the Hand (2002), in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, Craft and Design: Hand, Mind, and the Creative Process (2004), in collaboration with the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Craft and Community: Sustaining Place (2006) and Creating in Maine: Makers, Manufacturers, and Materials (2007 and 2008).

• Exhibitions at the Center for Community Programs focus on the work of contemporary American artists with work by internationally distinguished makers and also provide an opportunity to learn about these makers’ creative process as well.

• The Haystack Monograph Series provides a forum for writers of varied perspectives to reflect on the idea of craft. The series of twenty-two monographs cover a range of topics.

• Visiting Artists live in the Haystack community, work in their own dedicated studio space, and strengthen and intensify the educational environment at the school with public presentations, interactions with session participants, and informal workshops.

"Through this (Craft and Community) symposium and others in the series, Haystack is applying considerable thought and resources into the development of critical practice, thinking, and writing related to the craft field, thus providing a significant and lasting contribution to makers, educators and writers concerned about this way of working."

~ Joshua Green, Vice President of Operations, Manchester Craftsmen's Guild,

and participant in the 2007 Craft and Community: Sustaining Place symposium

"Everyday, it seems, I remember a conversation, a thought, an idea generated at Haystack from the time at New Works. The Sunday after, as I was getting ready for 2 immediate weeks of complex (or so I thought) artist residencies on the road, instead of worrying, I kept smiling. Remembering this I felt so energized, alive, and grateful to be an artist and to have had the opportunity to eat, sleep, work, and laugh with 50 or other generous spirits... as much as I have been fed by the lovely food of your dining room, I have been fed by the generosity of spirit which surrounds Haystack."

~ Bryant Holsenbeck, environmental artist

“Any suggestions for change that I could make would only make the mentorship programs different, not better. I loved working with my teachers, I loved the environments and materials. Haystack has been my best learning experience ever. I even wrote a college essay about it, which got me into a wonderful school…” 

~ excerpt from an evaluation of a participant in the Student Mentor Program

 

 “I cannot stress enough how important these programs are…. [They] make kids believe in themselves.”

~ Katie Greene, art instructor at George Stevens Academy, Blue Hill