The Maine Craft Apprentice Program is offered through a partnership between the Maine Crafts Association the Maine Arts Commission and the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. The program supports 100 hours of one to one training over seven-months between a mentor and apprentice. The learning experience is for apprentices who demonstrate a commitment to acquiring new skills, tools and management habits and furthering their craft practice; they accomplish this through a significant relationship with a mentor artist. CAP celebrates the mentor/apprentice relationship as a way to generate creative entrepreneurship, envisioning a sustainable and resilient craft sector for Maine & New Hampshire.
Program Objectives
- Providing makers with relevant and alternative educational experiences.
- Promoting and facilitating craft as a viable career path.
- Fostering deliberate mentoring.
- Facilitating professional development of emerging makers.
- Increasing pool of craft makers in the state.
- Providing makers with alternative means of professional funding.
- Develop and promote peer learning in the Maine craft community.
Partners + Funding:
CAP is produced by the Maine Crafts Association in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission since 2016. In 2023, we began partnering with the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen to expand the program into our neighboring state, offering more opportunities for artists in New England.
Organizational Partner, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, graciously hosts the annual CAP Alumni Gathering and Capstone Exhibition which is sponsored by Maine Home + Design Magazine.
2024 CAP is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
2024 Craft Apprentice Program Funders + Partners
& Prior Year Supporters and Champions of the Craft Apprentice Program
