Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) is the largest, most comprehensive center of its kind in the world. Our mission is to ignite artistic practice, inspire learning, and foster diverse creative communities through the book arts.

We make book arts more accessible by providing tools, equipment, and knowledge. MCBA supports artists from different backgrounds and encourage creative growth.

Through exhibitions and educational programs, we bring people together, inspire new ideas, and help shape the future of the book arts.

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North Bennet Street School’s mission is to train students for careers in traditional trades that use hand skills in concert with evolving technology, to preserve and advance craft traditions, and to promote greater appreciation of craftsmanship.

The School’s intensive, hands-on training helps students from around the world to achieve meaningful lives and livelihoods. We encourage individual growth and curiosity, along with technical mastery and a commitment to excellence.

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Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program is a nonprofit residential craft school located in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains at the edge of the Pioneer Valley.

We offer 2-5 day adult craft workshops across eight studios (2D Mixed Media, 3D Mixed Media, Ceramics, Fibers, Flameworking, Flat Glass & Mosaics, Metalsmithing & Jewelry, and Woodworking) from May to October, a teen program in July, and various studio residency programs throughout the year.

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Brookfield Craft Center is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, founded in 1952 and incorporated in 1954 “to teach and preserve the skills of fine craftsmanship, and to enable creativity and personal growth through research and craft education.”

Our mission is to expand our reach and enhance our support for the artistic community, providing opportunities for individuals of all backgrounds to explore creative expression. We are committed to providing an inclusive and supportive environment where creativity can thrive at every stage of one’s journey.

We offer classes in blacksmithing, metalworking, jewelry, fiber arts, glass, ceramics, woodturning, drawing, painting, printmaking, photography and expanded digital media. In addition to our educational programming, our gallery and retail shop showcases the works of regional artists.

Beyond advocating for the arts and community building, we play an active role in local historical preservation, economic development, and an enhanced way of life for all those engaged in our diverse offerings of programs, classes, and events.

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Brick House Arts: Where Craft Meets Community

Nestled in the heart of Hancock, New Hampshire, Brick House Arts is more than just a studio—it’s a vibrant hub for tactile creativity and connection. Housed in a space that breathes history and inspiration, the center is anchored by the expertise of resident artists Erin Sweeney and Bob Petzold.

At Brick House, the philosophy is simple: handwork is a bridge to community. Whether you are a seasoned maker or picking up a tool for the first time, the atmosphere is designed to be inclusive, supportive, and deeply rooted in the joy of making.

Workshops & Offerings

The center specializes in a diverse range of traditional and contemporary disciplines, offering hands-on instruction in:

• Book Arts: Exploring structures, binding techniques, and the narrative power of the handmade book.
• Printmaking: From hand-set type to experimental pulls, capturing the magic of the democratic multiple.
• Fibers: Embroidery, hand and machine stitching, coiling and tactile exploration of textile traditions.
• Woodworking: Crafting functional beauty through a deep respect for raw materials and joinery.

The Heart of the House

The “pivotal” mission of Brick House Arts is community. It serves as a gathering place where the act of creating side-by-side fosters lasting relationships and a shared appreciation for the slow, intentional pace of the handmade life.

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Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles, Illinois, is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit. Founded in 1979, the center inspires creativity year-round through adult classes in a wide variety of arts and crafts, including weaving, pottery, blacksmithing, basketry and glassblowing. Welcoming everyone from beginners to experienced artists seeking community, Fine Line offers classes for all skill levels.

In addition to classes, Fine Line is also home to the Kavanagh Gallery and the Dempsey Artisan Shop. The Kavanagh Gallery hosts a number of exhibitions each year featuring work by local and national artists, providing a platform for artists to showcase their art to the broader community.

The Dempsey Artisan Shop gives local artists a year-round opportunity to sell their work. Fine Line offers a welcoming, supportive space for artists and art lovers to thrive.

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Founded in 1935 during the height of the Great Depression by a group of artists and craftspeople banding together for mutual support. We centered our relationship to natural materials striving to create a more just and equitable society, where art and craft are valued and accessible to all. Our founders were dedicated to preserving age-old craft traditions in the making of beautiful objects of daily use, for ordinary people, and the personal and societal health that comes from doing so.

LexArt strives to infuse the arts into every aspect of civic life. We focus on inclusiveness and accessibility and find the most effective mechanism for providing opportunities for arts engagement is through our community partnerships and shared programming. We host a healthy studio instruction program, offering 130 classes and workshops each year in a broad range of disciplines. We operate publicly accessible maker-spaces in ceramics, metalsmithing, painting, weaving & woodworking and have multiple classrooms for other makers groups. We host numerous artisan fairs/markets throughout the year, promoting locally handcrafted goods. We have a monthly rotating gallery exhibition program, highlighting regional work at the intersection of fine art and craft. We seek to present and amplify the voices and experiences of those that contrast with our own and create a fertile and sympathetic space for people to come together, share, learn, and celebrate our common humanity.

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Sanborn Mills Farm is a working, living farm and heritage craft school where history is practiced, and skills are passed hand-to-hand.  Here, work is the archive and use is preservation — tradition shaping the future.

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Established in 1934 and celebrating over 90 years of excellence in fashion education, The School of Fashion Design (SFD) is the only educational institution in New England dedicated exclusively to the study of hand-crafted apparel design and construction.

We value the fine craft of a well-made garment and believe that fashion design is a learned skill that can be mastered through education and disciplined practice.

Renowned for our teaching expertise and technical rigor of our professional skills training, SFD is a private, nonprofit studio school offering our signature Certificate in Fashion Design. SFD also offers year-round creative workshops in various textile arts, as well as a High School fashion program.

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KC Clay Guild is a nonprofit ceramic arts center that provides educational programming, a competitive Artist in Residence program, workshops, exhibitions, and artist services.

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Peters Valley enriches lives through learning, appreciation, and practice of fine crafts.

The making of fine crafts is a kind of exploration, which relies on an integration of heart, head, and hands. Peters Valley encourages and facilitates this exploration in everything we do.

We are a vibrant community, bringing together established and emerging artists from around the globe. Coming together to make things makes us better artists, able to learn from each other, and to evaluate our own efforts in a wider context.

We provide studio-based educational workshops for life-long learners who have the opportunity to benefit from working with nationally and internationally-recognized artists.

We steward the creative process from start to finish, focusing on process to strengthen creative ability. We believe creativity is both personal and communal, often sparked by new places and diverse artistic perspectives.

Peters Valley is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

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The Groove Artspace is a multifaceted organization, including a teaching collaborative (with 15+ teachers offering a huge array of arts and crafts classes), studios for working artists and artisans, a gallery offering monthly exhibits and a non-profit arm managing our community outreach and education work.  We have a strong focus on glass and mosaic, but our work encompasses all forms of handwork and artistic creation.

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The Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts is a dynamic nexus for artists who create with clay, offering time, space, and deep creative connection. Since 1986, Watershed has championed artists at every career stage through internationally recognized residencies that prioritize community, collaboration, and artistic exploration. On our rural Maine campus, artists work side-by-side in an open-concept studio, forging lasting bonds and pushing the boundaries of their practice in dialogue with one another and with the surrounding coastal landscape.

Our peer-to-peer, artist-organized residency model creates an environment where complicated ideas are valued, innovation is championed, and creative vision expands. Beyond residencies, Watershed enriches the broader community through professional development workshops for K–12 educators, public programs and artist talks, ceramic exhibitions in our Edgecomb gallery, and the beloved annual Salad Days festival. Watershed is a place where artists come to be inspired and leave transformed.

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Our mission at Adam’s Forge is to provide a safe, inclusive, diverse, accessible and thriving community where people of all ages and backgrounds can share in the traditions, knowledge, and artistry of blacksmithing, metal arts and other creative handcrafts across generations and into the future.

The magic of iron is in everyone’s blood.

Adam’s Forge provides hands on classes in artistic blacksmithing, related metal arts and creative handcrafts. We offer space, tools and expertise to aspiring artists. We provide demonstrations and speakers for public events and meetings. We support a vibrant artistic blacksmithing community with outreach to our surrounding Southern and Central California community.

Founded in honor of metal artist Adam Leventhal, our blacksmithing and multimedia art studio in Simi Valley connects our past while forging our future.  We offer classes to complete beginners and those looking to build advanced skills. In our supportive environment, students learn time-honored techniques while discovering their own creative path.

As Southern California’s premier center for metalworking education, we are uniquely positioned to bridge traditional craftsmanship with contemporary artistic innovation — creating opportunities that are notably limited in the SoCal arts landscape. We currently offer over 240 classes in bladesmithing, blacksmithing, metalsmithing, metalworking, bronze casting, copper working and jewelry making.

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Established in 1793, Lowell’s Boat Shop is the oldest continuously operating boat shop in the United States and is cited as the birthplace of the legendary fishing dory. Lowell’s is the only remaining survivor of Amesbury’s world-renowned dory manufacturing industry that produced in excess of a quarter of a million dories over a period of two centuries. We are a National Historic Landmark.

In its third century of operation, Lowell’s Boat Shop is both a working boat shop and a museum, and the preservation of each part is essential to our mission. We continue to build dories and skiffs for clients in the time-honored tradition of seven generations of the Lowell family that owned and operated the Boat Shop. The rich history of the building, collections, and our role in the community are conveyed through woodworking classes, our Apprentice program, programming for local schools, lively social gatherings, partnerships with other local museums, our YouTube channel, and the fleet of watercraft available for members who row their river.

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