Maine's Craft Apprentice Program: 2020 apprenticeships announced to include Windham artist

Anne Alexander of Windham The Maine Crafts Association, in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission, is proud to announce and support seven master/apprentice pairs selected for the 2020 Craft Apprentice Program (CAP), including Anne Alexander of Windham. Alexander will apprentice with Master Thomas Berger in his Kittery workshop to learn to carve granite. Anne, an experienced sculptor, currently makes indoor and seasonal outdoor sculpture; by learning to carve granite she will be able to make and sell outdoor sculpture that can stay outside year-round and require little maintenance. Tom will also support her goals to scale-up her small ceramic, wood and alabaster designs into larger sculptures and help her set up a new outdoor granite carving studio. The 2020 Craft Apprentice Program is supported by generous funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission, media/magazine sponsorship from Maine Home & Design and program support from MCA organizational partner, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. The Craft Apprentice Program began in 2016 to provide an in-studio educational opportunity for apprentices who demonstrate a commitment to further their abilities as craft artists; they accomplish this through a significant relationship with a master artist.

Applicants apply jointly, providing clear goals, a plan for how goals will be achieved, and a budget for the apprentice’s honorarium. Both must also submit resumes and images of current work. The apprenticeship is centered on the apprentice's goals for their studio practice and craft career over 100 hours of one-on-one in-studio learning with a master craft artist result in meeting those goals. Both master and apprentice are awarded funding. To close the program, all artists participate in an alumni gathering and a public exhibition of works created during the apprenticeship period. The 2020 exhibition will take place at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, with a public opening reception sponsored by Maine Home & Design on October 2, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m..