The Maine Craft Apprentice Program is offered through a partnership between the Maine Crafts Association and the Maine Arts Commission. 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.

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. 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.

2022 Apprenticeship funding provided by Maine Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.

2022 Craft Apprentice Program Funders + Partners

Maine Crafts Association

& Prior Year Supporters and Champions of the Craft Apprentice Program