COMMUNITY PROGRAMS

MENTOR PROGRAM

For more than twenty years, the Mentor Program has provided high school students with the opportunity to learn from professional artists and makers in their community. We see the program as an ideal follow-up to Studio Based Learning and it provides a special insight into the creative lives and studios of working artists. 

Taking place each winter, students participate in small cohorts and work with their mentors over an extended period of time, while forging connections with their peers that often extend far beyond the program itself. From late January through mid-March as many as 40 students worked with 10 mentors in the areas of drawing, ceramics, jewelry, blacksmithing, glassblowing, sewing, weaving, and woodworking, among others. The full schedule is announced in late November and we assign students to mentors based on expressed interest and availability. The Mentor Program is open to students from the Deer Isle and across the Blue Hill Peninsula, both those who attend public and private high schools as well as those who are homeschooled. Students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School, George Stevens Academy, the Harbor School in Blue Hill, Bucksport High School, Ellsworth High School, and Mount Desert Island High School participated in the 2020 program.

Thanks to ongoing fundraising efforts and the generosity of our donors, the Mentor Program is entirely underwritten by Haystack and there is no cost to attend. Students are only responsible for paying a small materials fee, which is waived if needed. 

Support for the 2024 Mentor Program was provided through Haystack’s funds from Annie & Chuck Holland, the Belvedere Fund, and Betsy Rowland.

Selected Past Faculty

2024 Mentor Program Instructors:

Blacksmithing
Farrell Ruppert

Ceramics
Codey Strange

Fab Lab
Josh Guyot

Glass
Linda Perrin

Graphics
Katama Murray