Intensive Summer Workshops
Each summer, Monson Arts programs a variety of short intensive workshops in our studios which provide an ideal environment to focus on learning and creative work. Taught by instructors renown in their field, these classes are designed to give participants unhindered time where they don’t have to think about anything other than making. Monson Arts provides all meals and the option of housing right in town within walking distance to all of our facilities. The studios are open 24 hours.
A typical workshop includes 8-12 participants and we are able to host two workshops at a time in our facilities. Sessions begin with dinner on arrival night and conclude before lunch on the final day. Workshops are open to anyone 18 or older and working at any level from beginners to advanced professionals. Enrollment is on a first-come first-served basis.
Painting workshop with Alan Bray, 2018
2025 Summer Workshops
Our lineup of Summer Workshops for 2025 offers many exciting opportunities to work alongside professional artists, writers, and media producers while engaging directly with the North Woods. We will be offering 4-6 day courses in writing and visual arts. For the second year, we will be hosting the Conference of Poetry and Learning with Dawn Potter.
The cost to take a workshop includes tuition, room & board, and materials fees. We offer on-campus housing in a private (single) or double (shared with one other person) room. Room availability is limited and filled on a first-come, first-served basis. If you do not need housing, you may register as a day student at a reduced rate. Whether staying on campus or off, all meals are included and prepared by the Quarry Fine Dining restaurant. Fees for materials and supplies will vary for each studio and can range from $25-$100.
Registration will be open through May 30th, or until filled.
*Maine North Woods Film Workshop must be registered by April 21st
TUITION, ROOM & BOARD
Varies for each program due to length.
If you are unable to register below because a workshop is full, please contact our office about being on the waitlist. We will let you if space becomes available.
Summer 2025 Workshops
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Paper in 2 & 3 Dimensions: Print, Stitch & Weave
$500.00June 22 – 28, 2025
Enjoy a week of playing with ways to transform paper by printing, stitching, and weaving it. We will, in effect, adapt traditional textile methods to work with paper. We’ll print letterpress patterned papers using wood type letters and numbers, learn embroidery stitches that work beautifully on paper, and weave strips of paper to make textural 2-D and 3-D objects.
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Writing in the Wild
$500.00July 27 – Aug 2
Meredith McCarroll and Sarah Holman lead a week long generative workshop that celebrates the profound effect nature has on the creative process. Numerous studies point to evidence of improved focus, enhanced creativity, and more flexible thinking in people who spend a significant amount of time outside. Beautiful Monson, Maine, is the ideal place to practice this art and produce some wildly powerful new writing!
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Dreamscape Soundscape: A sound design workshop
$250.00July 27 – Aug 2 (SALT Session)
In this weeklong workshop, students will record and sound design their own dreams, turning their interior experiences stories into immersive audio pieces. They will use field recordings, audio synthesis, foley, and recorded music for their dreamscapes. By the end of the week, students will have designed and scored a short audio documentary from scratch.
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Thinking About Landscape
$500.00June 22 – 28, 2025
This workshop will be open to all painters and draftsmen at all levels of experience. We will work with any water based media you prefer as well as drawing. My primary medium is casein tempera but any water based medium is fine. The emphasis will be on the process of determining how an idea can ripen and change as it matures and evolves into an actual work of art.
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Nature Journaling at Borestone Mountain
June 22 – 25 (at Borestone)
Would you like to deepen your creative engagement with the Maine woods? This special three-day retreat will immerse participants in the older forests and crystalline ponds of Borestone Mountain. With nature journaling as our foundation, this retreat is open to artists, writers, and creatives. This workshop is offered in partnership with Maine Audubon.
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Maine North Woods Film Workshop
$500.00July 24 – July 27
Maine Woods Film Participants will collectively make a film over the course of three days in the Maine Woods: shooting, editing, and projecting 16mm film on location. We will learn how to make a film emulsion in the field, use handmade processes, and develop film with the cycles of the new moon. We will also discuss how writers and other artists with connections to the area have conceived of nature, and the possibilities for alternative ways of viewing and expanding landscape a century and a half after Thoureau’s writing of The Maine Woods.
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Conference on Poetry and Learning
$800.00July 5 – July 12
The Conference on Poetry & Learning invites educators, teaching artists, and other poetry advocates to work intensely with their colleagues and a faculty of distinguished poets who are experts in both teaching poetry and creating community.
Latest News > Workshops at Monson Arts
Preview our 2024 Residency Schedule
Monson Arts plans to welcome a total of 100 residents in 2023. Check out our complete lineup of residency dates for next year. Winter applications will be open August 1 – Sep 15.
Q&A WITH TEACHER ỌMỌLARÁ WILLIAMS MCCALLISTER ON UPCOMING WEAVING CLASS @ MONSON ARTS
Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Ọmọlará Williams McCallister is based in Baltimore, where Ọmọlará earned a Masters of Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College Of Art and co-founded the Baltimore Community Weaving Studio. Ọmọlará’s practice is to cultivate...
Q&A WITH TEACHER ROBERT SMITH ON UPCOMING STORY EDITING FOR AUDIO CLASS @ MONSON ARTS
Robert Smith is a Professor at Columbia Journalism School and a long-time host of NPR’s Planet Money where he tells stories about the global economy. With a microphone in hand, Robert has drilled for oil, harvested cotton, launched a satellite into space, and created...
Q&A WITH TEACHER Peggy Yocom ON UPCOMING FOLKLORE WRITING CLASS @ MONSON ARTS
For five decades, Peggy Yocom has been listening to the stories of people who live in the mountains of western Maine. In academia, she founded the Folklore Studies Program of George Mason University where she taught for 36 years and twice received the University...
Q&A WITH TEACHER ED NADEAU ON UPCOMING PAINTING CLASS @ MONSON ARTS
A native Mainer, Ed Nadeau is an Associate Professor at the University of Maine in Orono teaching advanced courses in painting and drawing. His area of research is the history, manufacture and use of traditional artists materials along with current advancements of new...
Q&A WITH TEACHER ROBERLEY BELL ON UPCOMING SCULPTURE CLASS @ MONSON ARTS
Roberley Bell is the recipient of numerous fellowships including awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Pollock Krasner Fellowship, and a Senior Scholar Fulbright to Turkey. Most recently she was a research fellow in the department of Urban Planning at...
Q&A With Teacher Lisa Houck On Upcoming Mosaic Class @ Monson Arts
Lisa Houck studied printmaking and graduated at the Rhode Island School of Design and shortly after joined the Experimental Etching Studio in Boston where she taught etching and monoprinting before going on to get an MFA in 1989 from Tufts University in painting....
Preview our 2023 Residency Schedule
Monson Arts plans to welcome a total of 100 residents in 2023. Check out our complete lineup of residency dates for next year. Winter applications will be open August 1 – Sep 15.
Preview our 2022 Residency Schedule
Monson Arts hopes to bring a total of 100 residents in 2022 making it our busiest year yet. Check out our complete lineup of residency dates for next year. Apply now for Spring sessions!
Summer 2019 Public Programs
See our lineup of fee public programs being offered this summer including evening talks by artist/ instructors, exhibits, demonstrations, and film screenings.