Haystack Mountain School of Crafts was founded in 1950 (it moved to its current location in 1961) without any set curriculum, teaching faculty or student body. Instead, every summer hundreds of students – from recent college graduates to retirees – descend on Haystack for two-week workshops in ceramics, weaving, woodworking, metalsmithing, glassblowing or printmaking. They are taught by a rotating roster of experts. “The most radical thing about this place is that its entire tenor changes every two weeks,” says Paul Sacaridiz, Haystack’s director since 2015. “It was never an attempt at a traditional school.”

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