MATERIA | Musings: Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
By Megan Sommerville and Matt Ensner
“Late June, 2023 in Midcoast Maine meant a long awaited return to a place Megan and I literally stumbled upon fifteen or so years earlier and had daydreamed about ever since. It was with a nervous anticipation, like felt when first heading to camp or to a new school, that we crossed the Eggemoggin Reach, turned onto the Sunshine Road, and were quickly engulfed by a Jericho Bay fog that would not lift until we left two weeks later–– broken only by the rumble of early morning lobster boats, the occasional hum of a tablesaw, the hotshop cacophony of ball peens on brass and the cyclical smacking of waves from lifting tides meeting the thickly lichened pink granite cliffs of Deer Isle and the nearly endless thumping of rain. We had come to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, which is gently nestled amongst electric moss cushions, stunted spruce and fir of the northern boreal forest. Sharply angled and stacked structures of architectural significance, clad in perfectly grey cedar shake, connected by veins of steep wooden stairs and elevated planked pathways, have been peppered with expressive faces, expansive conversations and arts education every summer since 1961.”