FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Issued: October 20, 2026
CONTACT: Kate Lochner, kate@haystack-mtn.org
Download Images: https://adobe.ly/4BgF5hR

Haystack’s 2026 Open Door Program Offers Digital and Hand Craft for Mainers

Deer Isle, Maine – Haystack Mountain School of Crafts hosted the annual Open Door program from Friday, October 9 to Monday, October 12, 2026. Developed for the Maine community, it serves as a meaningful way to close Haystack’s season of national and international programming. This year, seventy-three participants attended from 10 counties across the state.

The program is designed for Maine residents, ages 18 and over, of all skill levels and backgrounds. Workshops are offered in blacksmithing, ceramics, digital fabrication, fiber, graphics, metals, and woodworking, and are led by distinguished artists from across the United States. The program offers uninterrupted time for participants to explore materials and techniques while being in a creative community with other Mainers. 

Open Door workshops for 2026 included:

BLACKSMITHING
Forging Kitchen Tools: Spoons, Spatulas + Hooks with Shawn Lovell (she/her), Berkeley, CA

CERAMICS
Breaking the Confines of the Wheel with Frank Zhu (he/him), Austin, TX

FAB LAB
3D Printing with Bio-Based Materials with Kimberly Lyle (she/her), Atlanta, GA

FIBER
Encrusted: Explorations in Contemporary Bead Embroidery with Carly Owens Weiss (she/her), Brooklyn, NY

GRAPHICS
Papercoated: Sculptural Papermaking with Ashley Page (she/her), Portland, ME

METALS
Fiber Techniques and Metal with Venetia Dale (she/her), Boston, MA

WOOD 
Hand Wood Carving with Fredy Huaman Mallqui (he/him), Erie, PA

Open Door is supported in part by Haystack’s Program Endowment, with additional funding provided by individual donors and granting agencies.

IMAGE LIST AND CAPTIONS:

Download Images: https://adobe.ly/4BgF5hR

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Stevie McKean (Yarmouth, ME) coats a wire sculpture in paper pulp outside the Graphics studio during the workshop, Papercoated: Sculptural Papermaking with Ashley Page (Portland, ME).

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The work station of Haley Maruhnic (Belfast, ME) in the Fiber studio during the workshop, Encrusted: Explorations in Contemporary Bead Embroidery with Carly Owens Weiss (Brooklyn, NY).

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Participants Zoe Sessums (Rockport, ME), foreground, and Darren Gallant (Lewiston, ME), background, create wearable forms in the Metals workshop, Fiber Techniques and Metal, with Venetia Dale (Boston, MA).

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Open Door Ceramics instructor Frank Zhu (Austin, TX), at right, assists a participant in the Ceramics studio during the workshop, Breaking the Confines of the Wheel.

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Participants in the Wood studio during the workshop, Hand Wood Carving, with Fredy Huaman Mallqui (Erie, PA).

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John Van Dis (Union, ME) mixes dried seaweed in the Fab Lab during the workshop 3D Printing with Bio-Based Materials with Kimberly Lyle (Atlanta, GA).

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Left to right: James Rutter (Blue Hill, ME), Devin Goodwin (Saco, ME), George Katilus IV (Portland, ME), and Cassie Forward (Portland, ME) in the Hotshop during the workshop, Forging Kitchen Tools: Spoons, Spatulas + Hooks with Shawn Lovell (Berkely, CA).

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Open Door participants enjoy the Ceramics studio during the end-of-session Studio Walk-Through.

About Haystack Mountain School of Crafts | haystack-mtn.org

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is an international craft school located on the Atlantic Ocean in Deer Isle, Maine. For 75 years, Haystack has connected people through craft, providing the freedom to engage with materials and develop new ideas in a supportive and inclusive community. When Haystack was founded in 1950, it was truly an experiment in education and community, with no permanent faculty or full-time students—a School that awarded no certificates or degrees. Haystack serves an ever-changing group of makers and thinkers of all skill levels—we are dedicated to working and learning alongside one another while exploring the intersections of craft, art, and design in wide-ranging and expansive ways. 

For three-quarters of a century, Haystack has offered intensive studio workshops and has functioned as a think-tank to explore craft in broad contexts. The School’s award-winning campus, designed by noted American architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, opened in 1961 when the School relocated to Deer Isle from its original location in Montville, Maine. The buildings and secluded, natural setting have provided steadfast support for convening an intergenerational community of makers from around the world to share ideas, materials, and techniques, and make discoveries alongside one another in a creative and generative environment. While Haystack has grown in ways that could never have been imagined—offering residencies, programs for Maine youth and adults, conferences, publications, and more—the core of our work and the ideas we adhere to have stayed very much the same.

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