Crafts at Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program
A residential crafts program in an inspiring setting: a 1700s farm with professionally-equipped studios, simple dorm buildings, and a communal dining room. Novice and experienced artists learn from accomplished, practicing artists and each other. Build rustic furniture, learn Japanese stencil dyeing, create welded sculpture, or immerse yourself in Drawing for the Absolutely Terrified. Workshops cover the gamut of materials and techniques. See also Teens/Children/Intergenerational section for more Snow Farm offerings.
Where: Snow Farm: the New England Craft Program, Williamsburg
For: Adults and Teens
Duration: 2 to 7 days
When: January-October
Extend your stay in western Massachusetts
Welding for the Home and Garden
Learn the basics of welding, cutting, and bending steel. Use found objects to create an outdoor sculpture or decorative object for your home. No previous welding experience necessary.
Where: Snow Farm: the New England Craft Program, Williamsburg
For: Adults and Teens
Duration: 2- to 7-day sessions
When: May-October
Extend your stay in western Massachusetts
Stone-Carving Workshops
If you ever dreamed of turning stone into art, this is your opportunity. Scott Cahaly is a professional artist and experienced teacher. His Stone Carving Saturday workshop for adults will equip you with basic techniques, experience in using tools, and an initiation into the craft of stone sculpture. At the end of the day, you’ll have a stone sculpture in progress. His four-morning workshops (ages 13+) provide instruction for beginners and guidance for more experienced carvers. For teens 12+ there are 4-day workshops during February and April school vacations.
Where: Scott’s Stone Carving Classes, Cambridge
For: Adults and teens 12+
Duration: 1-day and 4-day workshops
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Painting Classes in Provincetown
Painting classes — Landscape, Paint the Town, Essentials of Cape School Plein Air Painting, No Fear Painting, Portrait and Figure Painting — at the art school that helped establish Provincetown as the nation’s first art colony.
Where: Cape School of Art, Provincetown, Cape Cod
For: Adults
Duration: 2-5 days
When: May-November
Extend your stay on Cape Cod
Printmaking
Zea Mays Printmaking is housed in a a 19th-century mill building. It offers a wide range of printmaking workshops for all levels, taught by experts in the field. Workshops take place in a studio designed specifically for teaching.
Where: Zea Mays Printmaking, Florence
For: Adults
Duration: 1- and multi-day workshops
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Hampshire County
Glassblowing 101: Make Your Own Drinking Glass
Immerse yourself in this two-day workshop learning the art of glassblowing at the Diablo Glass School. Meet other inventive people and learn the fundamentals of glassblowing: the furnace, vocabulary, tools, and safety. Then make your own unique drinking glass. Diablo also offers more 1- and 2-day workshops.
Where: Diablo Glass School, Boston
For: Adults
Duration: 2-day weekend
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Bead Making 101: Moretti
Acquire a unique new skill in glass bead-making at the Diablo Glass School. In this introductory class, you will learn how to make stunning glass beads on a mandrel. The experienced instructors will show you how to use heat and gravity to shape molten Moretti glass. No experience necessary. Diablo also offers more 1- and 2-day workshops.
Where: Diablo Glass School, Boston
For: Adults
Duration: 1 day (Saturday)
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Wood Carving
European-trained, master woodcarver David Calvo provides beginner and intermediate students with fundamental wood carving skills. Classes are small so students get one-on-one attention. The studio is adjacent to the Rocky Neck Cultural District and a short walk from museums, galleries, restaurants. and Gloucester harbor.
Where: Calvo Wood Carving School, Gloucester
For: Adults
Duration: 2-, 3-, and 5-day workshops
When: February-October
Extend your stay North of Boston
Crafts & Fine Arts at the Eliot School
Embrace the variety of arts classes offered by the Eliot School: street photography, drawing for comics, silk screening, clothing design, and more. Sign up for a weeklong course or create your own itinerary by mixing a variety of one-day classes. Summer Intensives (3 to 5 days) feature woodworking and fiber arts.
Where: The Eliot School, Jamaica Plain, Boston
For: Adults & children
Duration: 1- and multi-day courses
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Build Your Own Canoe
With the guidance of veteran boat builder Hilary Russell, you’ll learn, step-by-step, how to build a solo or tandem double paddle canoe, both designed for easy car-topping and portaging.
Where: Berkshire Boat Building School, Sheffield
For: Adults
Duration: 5 days
When: July
Extend your stay in western Massachusetts
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Wooden Boat Workshops
When you take a boat workshop at Lowell’s Boat Shop, you’ll be in good hands. They’ve been making wooden boats since 1793. In fact, this National Historic Landmark is the oldest continuously-operating boat shop in the United States, and it is cited as the birthplace of the legendary fishing dory.
Where: Lowell’s Boats Shop, Amesbury
For: Adults
Duration: 1- and multi-day workshops
When: Year round
Extend your stay in North of Boston
Craft-Making Workshops at North Bennet Street School
For more than a century, the North Bennet Street School has been providing hands-on training in traditional trades and fine craftsmanship. Woodworking workshops include bowl turning and carving, letter carving, furniture making, and shaker oval box making. You can also immerse yourself in bookbinding, calligraphy, and jewelry-making – all taught by master craftsmen.
Where: North Bennet Street School, Boston & Arlington
For: Adults; occasional classes for children
Duration: 1- and multi-day workshops
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Arts & Fiber Workshops
Choose from art workshops that change throughout the year – felt, painting, collage — then explore the art exhibits; the Fruitlands Farmhouse, the site of a utopian transcendentalist community in the 1840s; and stunning vistas.
Where: Fruitlands Museum, Harvard
For: Adults
Duration: 1-2 days
When: Year round
Extend your stay in North of Boston
Jewelry-Making Workshops
Metalwerx is the place to learn specialized jewelry-making techniques as well as metals arts fundamentals.
Where: Metalwerx, Waltham
For: Adults
Duration: 1-day & weekend workshops; multi-day Summer with the Masters workshops
When: Year round
More Info/Registration: 1-day workshops weekend workshops Summer with the Masters
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Art Workshops in Provincetown
What better place to learn new art media and techniques than in the artists’ colony of Provincetown? Workshops in drawing, painting, digital art, mixed media, photography, and printmaking at the Provincetown Art Association & Museum (PAAM).
Where: PAAM, Provincetown
For: Adults
Duration: 2- and 3-day workshops
When: Seasonally
Extend your stay on Cape Cod
Artists in their Studios
This is a unique opportunity from the Provincetown Art Association & Museum to study with artists in their private studios. See how their studios are set up and how they work, while learning more about yourself as an artist.
Where: Provincetown and other Cape Cod communities
For: Adults
Duration: Weekend
When: Seasonally
Extend your stay on Cape Cod
Arts and Craft Classes at the Asylum
The Artisan’s Asylum’s mission is to “make creativity a way of life.” The 40,000 square foot space is full of skilled and innovative makers who also teach. Workshops include screen printing, metalwork, sculptural crochet, welding, introductory robotics, and “assorted messy and multimedia” programs.
Where: Artisan’s Asylum, Somerville
For: Adults
Duration: 1-day and multi-day
When: Year round
Extend your stay in Greater Boston
Art and Craft Workshops at Fuller Craft
One of the preeminent contemporary craft museums in the U.S., Fuller Craft offers a series of workshops in clay, paper, wood, wire, and more. While you’re here, don’t miss the museum’s stunning exhibits.
Where: Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton
For: Adults
Duration: 1-day and multi-day
When: Year round
Extend your stay in South of Boston
Plein Air Painting Workshop
Join award-winning Gloucester artist David Curtis and palette knife painter Marianne Thompson for a plein air painting workshop at Cogswell’s Grant. Beautiful vistas including the Essex River and Great Marsh, farm fields and forests, and our eighteenth-century historic house and barns offer an ideal setting for landscape painters looking to refine their skills with expert instruction. For this drop-in class, bring your own materials and equipment, receive direction as you work, and gather for an end-of-day critique with the instructors. Then tour Cogswell’s Grant, a museum that features one of the country’s most celebrated collections of American folk art. Registration recommended.
Where: Cogswell’s Grant, Essex
For: Adults
Duration? Full day
When: Seasonal
Extend your stay in North of Boston
Glass Christmas Ornaments
Spend the day crafting a beautiful glass ornament at the Diablo Glass School. Choose from stained glass, flame working, fused glass, and glassblowing. These one-day courses come just in time to create a personal holiday gift or enjoy the fruits of your labor for yourself!
Where: Diablo Glass School, Boston
For: Adults
Duration: ½ day to full day
When: December
Extend your stay in Greater Boston