Sadie Bliss & Emily Shaffer
Courtesy of Maine Crafts Association
Sadie Bliss, Director of Maine Crafts Association
Emily Shaffer, Program Coordinator of Maine Crafts Association
“Maine Crafts Association has been a nonprofit arts organization supporting craft artists with educational marketing and retail opportunities since the 1980s, actually, and we've got about 600 members and also a lot of additional artists in our community who participate in just a couple events, but our members increasing that number of people that we work with. And then through our two retail galleries, Maine Craft Portland and the Center for Maine Craft in West Gardner, we interact with over 100,000 up to 200,000 visitors who stop into shop and learn about other activities going on in the state and just learn about Maine Craft in general. And we also offer a variety of types of craft shows from small markets to high end indoor shows. Of course, some of those indoor shows are on hiatus in 2020, along with several of the other things that I'll mention, we also do a lot of education for artists either in studio education we have a program up at Haystack or professional development where we bring in members of our community and beyond to work with us and artists to help them develop their businesses. One of our newer programs is a fashion show working with just a specific branch of craft artists who are making wearables and part of the slow fashion movement. So some of our programs are really specific like that. And some of the things that we have right now because of the changes this year in 2020 is a market called East End Vend, which is just a small market in Portland for artists, farmers and foodies, that's kind of a pop-up twice a week and a little bit of a more low key event for us. That's been really fun and popular...and then we also tie in other kind of nonprofit activities like fundraising and annual appeals and all that sort of things to keep it all going. And we've got some great supporters and sponsors that help us with that,” says Sadie Bliss, Director of Maine Crafts Association.
Maine Crafts Association helps many makers across the state of Maine promote themselves and their products through various initiatives including organized events and markets, workshops and panels with marketing experts to help makers best prepare for how to get their products out to the public and so much more.
“A textile artist in Brunswick has participated in MCA in many different ways from having kind of sort of products that a tourist might buy at the Center for Maine Craft and all the way up to being in our high end craft shows with her really intricate work that's for the for the quilted wall pieces. And she's just always kind of touching throughout all of our programs. She does Maine Craft Weekend and she was just really expressing last weekend that she was really grateful that we kind of whipped together East End Vend, and it wouldn't necessarily always be the type of thing that she would be able to fit in. But she felt like it was kind of a good opportunity during this time. And it was just a great way to kind of get back out into the community where a lot of people are having a hard time committing to, you know, a three day craft show was canceled, or an artist and audience aren't ready to deal with that. But a four hour thing on a Friday afternoon you can do it, it kind of gives you an opportunity to test out how that feels now, and if we can start growing to bigger things, or just if those smaller things can get us through this time, great. She's been a member, I think as long as I've been here, maybe longer. And that's one other cool thing is I've been here for 12 years, but we have members who have been out founding members and they're still participating regularly,” says Sadie.
Every year Maine Crafts Association organizes a Maine Craft Weekend event that is held the first Saturday and Sunday in October. It has been quite a popular event as Maine residents and out-of -staters travel to towns they have never been to before in Maine to discover a maker and learn more about their craft.
“In 2012, we started thinking towards doing a series of one annual, one statewide events to meet the interest we were hearing from artists and we wanted to have a better reach for our organization. It's exactly what it says, a statewide tour of Maine craft studios, businesses and events. Maine Crafts Association is the umbrella for hundreds, potentially of smaller events that are run by the individual artists and then we promote their events. And then they're the events that are held at the artists studio or sort of non-craft businesses will do a craft event. So we're really open and flexible and looking for people to be creative with it. And we have a feature in cities, we aren't doing that this year, but normally we do where we work with a downtown to have a number of events in one location. And so we have that type of thing, we might go to a town and be able to stay in that town and just zip all around or we have an artist that's way out on the end of a dirt road and you would travel all the way out just to go to that one thing and have kind of a unique experience and see the artists studio and potentially demonstrations and kind of get to know about materials and practices and a little bit about the life of an artist. So the thought process behind it was that to further allow MCA to support artists in their location, and from artists and audiences really in rural urban and downtown locations with our retail locations, for example, they need to be in high traffic locations. So we'd like to balance that out with having opportunities in retail locations and opportunities that people can participate in without having to travel all the way to Portland, for example,” says Sadie.
For this year’s Maine Craft Weekend, the Makers of Maine podcast partnered with them in interviewing five of their members that participated in the event to give folks an audio experience of the journey. The Maker’s of Maine podcast, Kristan Vermeulen, and Emily Shaffer, Program Coordinator at MCA, worked together to organize a great line up.
“The first guest is Linda and her husband, Ken Perrin. They have a gorgeous studio in Ellsworth, Maine. I've actually participated in their events in the past there and they are glass artists and glass blowers. They have this amazing brick building where they have public friendly glassblowing. So they open it up for that weekend, there's a big garage door. Their business is called Atlantic Art Glass. So as part of the weekend, a lot of times they have other artists come there and sell their work and do demonstrations and then there's also a brewery downstairs, Fogtown Brewery, so you can go down and have a drink afterwards. The second guest is Jody Johnstone and she is a potter in Swanville. I went to her property a couple of weeks ago for an outdoor event and it is amazing. She's got a wood fired kiln, a showroom and her home is on the property and it's all spread out and there's wildflowers everywhere and I know that the Belfast community, specifically the Belfast clay studio, a lot of times fires their pots there. So when I moved to this area, everybody immediately said,’Do you know Jody?’ so she's a kind of a staple here and I'm really excited to hear more. The third guest is Emily and she is a really active member of MCA. She has also participated in several Maine Craft Weekends. They have a family farm and wood shop and it's called Dole’s Orchard and I know a lot of times they have really kid-friendly events where they have demonstrations of the lasers and they engrave boxes and totes that they create in the woodshop. I'd love to see that demonstration one day, but they also, with the orchard, have apple and raspberry picking, hot cider donuts and, I don't know what their events gonna look like this year, but it's always exciting to see that come together. The fourth guest is Jemma and I've talked to her many times, and she's also a really active member of MCA. Her work is really contemporary and different. She's got a really large pottery workshop where she's got several kilns and wheels and relating equipment where she teaches. And she typically has demonstrations and allows visitors to give it a go. And she also has an exhibition space upstairs. And from the photo that I've seen the space is really open and airy and just really cool. The last guest is Geoff with OWL Furniture and I love his furniture. He's got this ergonomic line, I love that word ‘ergonomic’, I mean, he'll tell you all about it better than I can, but like, I'm sitting up straight in this chair right now, like much easier than a regular stool - and there's a reason for that! And he's a really amazing craftsman too and he's got this incredible line of fine furniture, specifically tables. He's a really active member as well. And I'm really excited for his interview,” says Emily.