By Everett Potter

On a misty morning a few years ago while exploring the coast of Maine, I had a chance to visit the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Now forget whatever the word “crafts” brings to mind. Founded in 1950, this school on the shores of rugged Deer Isle has long been an incubator for American design and crafts. Experimental, radical and cutting edge, Haystack artists defined midcentury modern and the school had been on my wishlist for ages.

Now the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) is mounting an exhibition, In the Vanguard: Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, 1950-1969. The exhibit, running from May 24–September 8, 2019, explores how an experimental school in rural Maine transformed art, craft, and design in the 20th century and helped define the aesthetics of the nation’s counterculture … Read more