Other Programs & Initiatives

Haystack has taken a leadership role in examining the role of craft in our society.

Creating in Maine, our 2-day conference in which manufacturers, designers, and artists from around the state were invited to come and contribute to an ongoing discussion of what it means to be a part of Maine's creative economy, was held in late September 2007. 

Participants at the 2007 Creating in Maine symposium work on a design problem in the clay studio.

Haystack began the invitational symposia in 2002. The goal is to 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) and Craft and Community: Sustaining Place (2006).  The symposium is an intimate scale—there are 65 participants including presenters.  As we have done with the others, Haystack will be publishing future symposium’s presentations as a monograph, which we distribute to university libraries and art schools.

Information about future Symposia will be posted as it becomes available.