MISSION

Haystack connects people through craft. Located on the coast of Maine, Haystack provides the freedom to engage with materials and develop new ideas in a supportive and inclusive community. Serving an ever-changing group of makers and thinkers, we are dedicated to working and learning alongside one another, while exploring the intersections of craft, art, and design in broad and expansive ways.

STRATEGIC PLAN

Haystack recently completed a comprehensive, eighteen-month strategic planning process that sought to build upon the School's solid foundation, honoring our values and history while charting the course for our next chapter. The revised Mission Statement above is one of the outcomes of our work.

ABOUT HAYSTACK

The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is an international craft school located on the Atlantic Ocean in Deer Isle, Maine. Founded in 1950 as a research and studio program in the arts, Haystack offers one and two-week studio workshops to participants of all skill levels as well as the two-week, Open Studio Residency program, exhibitions, tours, auctions, artist presentations, and shorter workshops for Maine residents and high school students.

We support visiting artists and scholars from a variety of fields including science, literature, music, and the visual arts who are invited to spend two weeks at the school focusing on their work. Haystack also functions as a ʻthink-tankʼ in looking at craft—publishing annual monographs and organizing a variety of conferences and symposia that examine craft in broader contexts. These include collaborations with other institutions such as the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. The award-winning campus was designed by noted American architect, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and opened in 1961 when the school relocated to Deer Isle.

Architecture 

In writing about Haystack, Robert Campbell, architecture critic for the Boston Globe, described the School as “so perfectly fitted to its site and its purpose that you never afterwards forget it.”    

American architect Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915-2004) designed the Haystack campus on Deer Isle, which opened to the public in the summer of 1961. The architectural plan situated a series of modest structures on a granite ledge overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, built in a vernacular style with local materials and interconnected by a series of walkways that encouraged community while seeming to float above the forest floor. His project for Haystack quickly gained attention and, over the years, would become recognized as an architectural masterpiece and an icon of American modernism. While Barnes went on to design the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Dallas Museum of Art, among other notable buildings, he would often refer to Haystack as “one of my happiest projects.” 

The School was awarded the coveted Twenty-five Year Award from The American Institute of Architects in 1994 in recognition of buildings that have retained their integrity and set standards of excellence for architectural design and cultural significance. The Haystack campus is one of only fifty-three buildings to receive this recognition, alongside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NY), the Gateway Arch, St. Louis (MO), and the East Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., to name just a few. In 2006, the campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places, further emphasizing the architectural significance of the school, and in 2021, The New York Times Style Magazine featured Haystack Mountain School of Crafts as one of the twenty-five most significant works of postwar architecture.

Staff & TRUSTEES 

STAFF

Perry Price
Executive Director
director@haystack-mtn.org

Julie Adley
Office Manager
office@haystack-mtn.org

Ginger Aldrich
Development Director
development@haystack-mtn.org

Molly Flanigan
Development + Database Coordinator
devdata@haystack-mtn.org

Isaac Goss
Maintenance Assistant
isaac@haystack-mtn.org

Kerri Harding
Store Operations Manager
store@haystack-mtn.org

Marissa Hutchinson
Programs + Studio Manager
programs-studio@haystack-mtn.org

Annette Huval
Accounting
accounting@haystack-mtn.org

Walter Kumiega
Facilities Director
operations@haystack-mtn.org

Kate Lochner
Communications Coordinator
kate@haystack-mtn.org

Bích Nguyên Nguyễn
Registrar
registrar@haystack-mtn.org

James Rutter
Technology Director
fablab@haystack-mtn.org

Mia Sartori
Studio Coordinator
mia@haystack-mtn.org

Marilyn Smith
CFO
cfo@haystack-mtn.org

Brad Willis
Studio Coordinator
brad@haystack-mtn.org

Josh Worthington
Operations Manager
josh@haystack-mtn.org

Phoebe Zildjian
Fab Lab Coordinator
phoebe@haystack-mtn.org

TRUSTEES

Namita Gupta Wiggers
President

Alison Croney Moses
Vice President

Laura Galaida
Treasurer

Helen Lee
Clerk

M. Rachael Arauz 

Abigail Barrows

Brett Bentson

Sara Clugage

Annet Couwenberg 

Tanya Crane

Andres Payan Estrada

Michelle Millar Fisher

Mickie Flores

Elizabeth Hoelle

Ryan Hoover

Ayumi Horie

Nina Johnson

Katharine Martin

John Ollman

Gina Podesta

Valerie Wicks

Kate Cheney Chappell

Arline Fisch

Wayne Higby

Richard Howe

Lissa Ann Hunter

Marlin Miller

Eleanor Rosenfeld

Claire Sanford

Cynthia Schira

Rosanne Somerson

Joan Sorensen