The 2025 Summer Art Classes and Workshops ~ currently being developed...
Searsport Shores Ocean Campground and Art Space is partnering with Fiber College and the Makers Guild of Maine, 501c3 to bring you art and music events all summer long.
Most of the programs are free or low cost drop-in classes for campers and day visitors. Labor Day Weekend Makers Festival will be everyone's opportunity to enjoy drop in classes and mentored workshops...bring your own craft project or choose from an all inclusive kit. Craft market all weekend long...and Live music on Saturday Night by Anni and the Rainmakers.
Anyone with the necessary attention span is welcome to join in the activities. Wheel chair accessibility is a given.
June 22-June 28, 2025 Weaving a Life of Kindness with Cathi Belcher
Join the Weaving Circle! Sometimes creating beautiful things is an act of courage and a way to spread kindness to others as well as ourselves. The art of weaving in particular is a wonderful metaphor for life. This week you can jump into daily workshops and create your own woven amulet, a mug mat, a friendship bracelet, and much more.
While you're working together there will be an opportunity to talk about how threads in a tapestry are like the connections that weave through our lives...a conversation that can go in so many directions. Cathi will also be demonstrating weaving and the use of a portable 7-stick Journey loom to create 7 different projects over the course of the week: an amulet, a doll, a 3-D bowl, a Mask, the Belt of Power, a Bundle and a Shawl.
Did you know that you don’t need fancy equipment to weave? You can weave on almost ANYTHING! Cathi will show you how to weave on a book, a slab of wood, a rock, driftwood, a picture frame or almost anything you might have at home to make beautiful tapestries. She will also be inviting you to try your hand at some larger collaborative weaving projects that we can all weave together on the giant Earth Loom at Searsport Shores.
June 29-July 5, 2025 Water Color Painting with Lorna Noelle
Lorna will be filling the studio with beautiful watercolors...and the passionate belief that every single human is creative and can find joy in making art. Join her each day to explore how watercolors capture the vibrant colors of nature because the paints themselves can be both fluid and wild. She promises, "With inspiration all around, we will get to explore our imaginations and humanity on paper with pencil, brush, and watercolor. We'll take daily walks to decide what we'll paint and we will use reference materials from life, photographs, and our imaginations. Never drawn before? I've got some tips and tricks that will help you take what's in your head and get it on to paper." As a practicing artist with two young children, Lorna happily invites campers of every age to join in the fun.
We've also asked Lorna to host a couple of fireside talks to share her ideas of how to bring creativity into the daily lives of every generation. (See me smiling, she says that she'll bring her facepaints too).
Lorna grew up in Maine and is coming to us from Austin Texas.
July 6-12, 2025 Wood, Wool and Color with Jude and Jim Hsiang
Jude and Jim are quintessential artists in residents and we're thrilled to invite them back with us this summer. In a nutshell they open the studio at 10:00, take a lunch and claim cocktail time for themselves a 4:00.
Jude says: I plan to do lots of dyeing, bring my sewing machine, and whatever else is at hand. I plan to be "open" most of the time--probably 10-4 daily or whenever anyone drops in--and in addition to dyeing, offer teaching several types of small and/or simple looms to make and use.
Jude says that Jim says: He plans to do some simple & rustic carpentry and also fishprints.
July 13-19, 2025 Windborne & Woven: A Residency with Chris Toy
Chris Toy
Join acclaimed artist and chef Chris Toy for an immersive residency exploring the interplay of art, nature, and culinary delights. Over the course of this residency, Chris will delve into the creation of stunning mobiles and stabiles using a captivating array of materials:
* Found and Upcycled Wonders: Driftwood, shells, feathers, clock parts, bicycle gears, and origami paper folded figures will be transformed into whimsical, kinetic sculptures. Check out the tree sculptures below...made from recycled extension cords and shells.
* Woodworking Wonders: Chris will craft elegant and functional handcrafted chopsticks from a selection of exquisite woods, including cherry, maple, oak, black walnut, and mahogany.
* Culinary Adventures: Immerse yourself in the world of Chris Toy's renowned cookbooks with interactive cooking demonstrations and recipe sharing.
All tools, supplies, and ingredients will be provided.
A small fee of $5-$10 per participant will help defray costs for each 2-hour session.
This residency promises a unique and enriching experience for art enthusiasts, culinary explorers, and those seeking a deeper connection with the natural world.
July 20-26, 2025 Middle Eastern Cooking with Chef Sonya Eldridge
In preparation for our annual Armenian Picnic, Sonya will be leading classes on Middle Eastern Classics like pilaf, vospov keftah (lentil and bulgar "meatballs"), lamajuhn (middle eastern pizza) and baklava. Come to the garden kitchen (or gather at the wood oven when necessary), tie on an apron and surround yourself with the tastes and smells of the Southern Caucuses.
To let you in on a secret, we have a "new" favorite paklava recipe that comes to us from Goris in Southern Armenia. We made it for Christmas and passed it to friends who generously gave us a thumbs up with the observations that this recipe was lighter, a bit less sweet and absolutely delicious. It's made with three layers of thin butter cookie dough instead of store bought phyllo dough and instead of sticks of butter, it's layered with nut filled sweet meringue...we're so excited to share it with you!
July 27-Aug 2, 2025 Plein Air Sketches and Oil Pastels
Russell is an awesome art teacher who loves to make marks...with pencils, paints, pastels...or burnt sticks from the fire ring. Join him in the campground to create sketches that will be some of your very best vacation souvenirs...promise! Bring an art journal if you have one, get one from our campground store or clip a piece of paper to a board and get started...this is an open invitation to draw regardless of your age, training or stick figure acuity :).
August 3-9, 2025 Brooms and Brushes
Sue Muldoon: Brooms For Everybody!
Sue is a basketweaver, seatweaver, broom maker, instructor and author. Last year she filled our studio with basket making classes and everybody asked us to assure them that she'd be back this year. She agreed and she's bringing her broom making supplies so that camper keeping will be just a bit more fun. Join her and make one or three of your own. When broom making seems too daunting, learn to make paintbrushes from driftwood and twigs. And if you ask nicely, I imagine there will be the opportunity to create zen stones too. Generally Sue opens the studio at 10 and retires into her own world at dinner time.
August 10-16, 2025 Paper Scuplture
Santa Steve
Santa needs a vacation before the holiday season begins...but he shares his sparkle with us here at the campground and we are ever grateful for his generous spirit. Join Santa from 9-4 (excluding his lunch breaks and walks around the park) to and follow him into the rabbit hole of his new passion...Beautiful and often kinetic paper sculptures..and if we ask nicely we think that he may even tell a campfire story or two!
August 17-30, 2025 Paper Play
If life were a box of crayons, Debbie and Cori would be sitting in the middle of them all, tossing them into the air with glee! We've been eagerly awaiting their return and this is the year.
Debbie will be joining us from Katy, Texas where she spends time in her studio practicing calligraphic hands as well as painting with watercolors, batik drawing with wax on paper, origami and making books and journals. She loves to get her hands on all types of paper and tries out paints, colors, folding and other techniques. In other words, “Debbie loves to play with paper“.
Cori hails from Houston and fell into the book arts because they encompass her two passions, reading and art. She feels that she has reached her heart’s home whenever she is in the middle of making a book. It is her perfect way to use the large amounts of decorated papers that seem to grow and multiply in her studio! Playing with papers and paints in many ways gives rise to stacks of wonderful materials that just beg to be housed in books - and there are so many different ways to make them! Join Cori as she fills the second week at camp as Artist in Residence with fun paper and book ideas.
Each day will begin at 10 am with a new technique and a project for you to create.
Labor Day Weekend is Maker's Day Weekend Buy a pass and take as many Fiber College Workshops as you want on Saturday and/or Sunday! When we think about these creative adventures, we imagine multi-generational families camping for the long weekend and mothers and children, grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and friends all taking classes. For those who aren't interested in crafting (
, but OK), there's plenty of hiking, biking, sightseeing and hanging at the beach so everyone can have a great weekend.
Workshop Studios will be open from 10:00-4:00, purchase your magic bracelet here.
Dive Deeply into your passion! Fiber College celebrates fiber in all its forms. The fiber arts connect us to the natural world, time-honored skills, the global community, and to each other. Our annual gathering, the week after Labor Day, is an established feature of the Maine arts calendar. We call our workshop series Touchstones because they speak to all that grounds us and give us a vision for the future. Come and share our passion, unlock your creativity and make something extraordinary.
September 8-15, 2025 Stitched Shibori Dyeing
Discover the power of the running stitch! Learn how this simple hand stitch can create beautiful and intricate designs. Kathleen will not only share her love of Shibori; an ancient Japanese technique of creating pattern on fabric and dyeing with indigo, but will take you step by step through the process. You will not only see how the hand stitched fabric can be compressed, knotted off and then dyed in an indigo vat to achieve these designs, but how a single fold in the fabric can change the entire design! This is a truly a magical experience that anyone can learn to achieve with confidence. If you can hand sew a running stitch on fabric, you can learn the art of Shibori.
Each day will begin at 10 am with a new technique and a project for you to create.
Strung Together Oldtime Music Campout
The OT & Bluegrass Jam weekend begins Friday afternoon with an OT Jam and banjo workshop followed by our world famous Strung Together wood fired pizza bar and concert. The jams will take place in different areas in the park but close enough to give all participants easy access to both jam circles.
This year we are jamming around the grounds under tents, porches, trees and other canopies. Designated spaces will be laid out for each style of music, with unlimited spots to hold you own jam.