Tear Cap Workshops is a non-profit, educational organization that aims to build connections between craft and the local environment, between experienced artisans and beginning students, and between artisans of different disciplines. It is our goal to build a craft community, accessible to anyone with a desire to learn, based around Maine resources: wood, stone, metal, and food. The name “Tear Cap” comes from the mountain peak that rises to the north above our facility: a former pine sawmill set on 19 acres of mixed forest and cleared, improved land.

Tear Cap Workshops seeks to unleash creative pursuits in all people through hands-on workshops, classes, educational events, internships and volunteer opportunities. We also hope to nurture the development and success of artists, craftspeople, and small creative businesses by offering affordable, aesthetic and inspiring rental spaces within this community. We aim to build connections between varied creative disciplines —wood, stone, metal and food — all connected by their importance to rural life in Maine. We will help people to connect and learn together to enhance the creative experience, fostering inspiration and creative advancement for people with skill levels from beginner to expert. In the same way that we like to dine at a big table with friends, we will share knowledge and skills as we recapture lost arts and invent new traditions inspired by our rural surroundings. Everyone sitting together, at a table made by a woodworking class, from wood that was felled and twitched out of our forest, eating bread made by a baking class, and soup made from fresh vegetables grown in our garden, will have participated in some part of this essential work, based on hand-made, locally grown, and traditional skills. A community will grow from this sharing just as friendship grows from breaking bread together.