11: Brian Jones talks with Stu Kestenbaum about the Make/Time Podcast

Introduction to NSEKA 360

0:00Welcome to NSEKA 360, a podcast that provides you the ceramic content you crave during the 360 days that surround our annual conference. We are excited to engage our listeners through social media and encourage you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For up-to-date

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Interview with Stu Kestenbaum

0:39This is Ben Carter and I'll be your host. For this episode of NSEKA 360, we have an interview from our 2016 conference in Kansas City, Missouri. You will hear host Brian Jones talk with Stu Kestenbaum about his long career in the arts. Kestenbaum was the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts for many years and is currently the host of the Make Time podcast. This podcast is a joint venture between the nation's top craft schools to shed light on the importance of craft makers in American society. You can find out more information at craftschools.us.

1:16Join us for our next conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 14th through the 17th, titled Cross Currents, Clay, and Culture. Registration for this year's conference is now open and pre-registration is highly encouraged. For more information, please visit nseka.net.

Craft Schools and Diversity

1:41Haystack, Penland. Haystack, Penland, Aramont, Peters Valley, and Pilchuk. Okay. And that is to expand people who, uh, awareness, uh, people who know about our programs and then also, uh, uh, long-term to create a more diverse student body and, uh, teachers too.

2:04So by banding, I mean, diverse student body, like pulling people out of places where they usually wouldn't get? Yeah. I mean, partly like, like there are a lot of people who know about the schools, but then they're like a place like Portland. It seems like half the people who are here would want to go to one of the programs if they knew about it. Most definitely. You know, but they don't, but if you say it to them, they wouldn't, it wouldn't be something they were aware of. And then also just more, uh, racial and cultural diversity too, because that's just generally an issue in the crafts, you know. I taught, uh, community college in July, or I'm sorry, in January at, uh, Mount Hood

2:38Community College, which is out in Gresham. It's like 45 minutes out of Portland. And there were some people who really make work. They had no idea about anything. There's craft schools, there's residencies, there's post-bac stuff, there's assistantships at Penland or does Haystack do that kind of thing too? Yeah. Or Aramont. I mean, I know Haystack and, uh, those three do it. There's a lot of places like that. Yeah. But there's really like this untapped vein of talent and population because, and the more expensive college gets, the more people are going to be going to community

3:09college and that's where all the talent's going to be. Because white rich kids can only hold the throne for so long.

Stu's Background and Career

3:16Yeah. Right. So there's a big shift going on and it feels like we really want to get ahead of it too. So it's, uh, so that's, yeah, that's part of the work and the podcasts are focusing on just talking to people who are doing interesting things, not necessarily that they were, uh, I'm not talking to him about like you went to craft school, what happened to you? It's more like you do interesting things and interesting things happen at programs like ours too. And we're just presenting those. So, so how many do you do? I've done four so far. Do you have to schedule that like every month or?

3:46We're actually going to put together a group of about right now, get five done and upload them to iTunes store and then, um, um, do 12 altogether. It's, it's funded by grant. So we have kind of a pilot project, I guess from the center for craft creativity. Well, it's, uh, the wind gate. Oh, you know, super. Yeah, sure. Yeah. You know how those, the source, the wind gate money is like half the money there is, is there money? Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's pretty, it's like everybody's banking on that stuff.

4:17And so you, and your podcasts are available. Oh, my podcasts are available through iTunes and through a thing called Stitcher, which is essentially, it's an app you get on any kind of mobile device or on your desktop. And you have an account and it saves your favorite kind of shows and it's an aggregate app. So it'll collect kind of everything off of iTunes. It's got a huge amount of information. Um, but my end is pretty simple. I pay for the hosting, the hosting company puts everything out. So

4:48all I have to do is save the file correctly. Right. And then deal with it and then send it out there. It's been pretty, it's pretty, they have it pretty, um, streamlined. Yeah. I'd say. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, thanks again for me. Yeah. I have Stuart Kesterbaum here in Oak Grove, Oregon, which is a, used to be a tiny suburb of Milwaukee, which is a suburb of Portland. Have you heard about Oak Grove? There's, there were riots in Oak Grove because there used to be streetcar service all over this area. Yeah. And when they decided

5:22they were going to make people have cars, they had riots in Oak Grove because people didn't want cars. They wanted their streetcar service and they felt like they were being essentially cut off. Right. They were being cut off from, uh, the rest of the city. Yeah. So I know there's an old trolley line that used to be here that's now a, like a walkway. A path. Yeah. And now there's a new, uh, transit system that was right here. On the max. Yeah. Which is different than the old. I mean, the politicians like the max because it represents that they did something,

5:52but people don't like it because they see it as, um, it attracts crime or it can't attract or there's people who live in one part of the city who want to do something that's not legal in a different part of town and they can use the max as their anyways. Yeah. It's probably, but the issues haven't changed a whole lot. Yeah. Except I was really interested in that story about Oak Grove. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of Portland is like that. There's little pockets of neighborhoods that have their own very specific history. Right. Yeah.

6:23Um, anyways, I think before we started where you like at the beginning, right? Let's start at the kind of the more, uh, uh, recent you, you, uh, we're at Haystack, uh, mountain school of crafts for 27 years, 27 years. And you retired last year. Yeah. End of, uh, May. End of May this year. Yeah. Well, May, May 2015. That's not May yet. Yeah. Not May. Yeah. Um, but

From Poet to Administrator

6:49you're, uh, by, I don't know if it's the correct term is by trade, but you're a poet. Yes. So how does a poet become an administrator? Well, uh, there aren't really any jobs for poets. That's one way. And, uh, I guess I had, uh, writing skills and I began actually, um, got a job running a small children's museum in, in, uh, uh, greater Portland and in Maine. And it was a CETA job, which was a, a jobs program back in the mid, mid to late seventies, uh,

7:25kind of a consolidation of all the great society programs got turned into CETA and nonprofit organizations could hire people as a, to give them entry-level jobs to work on projects. That was the idea. And so there was an all volunteer children's museum and, uh, I had a liberal arts education. Like I applied and got the job and, and I learned about grant writing there and how to develop programs. And I was there. Did you have a mentor while you were there? Did someone were just in charge all of a sudden? No, I was just in charge all of a sudden. You just figured it out. It was run by the junior league. And, uh, so I was the only employee

7:59and I just, yeah, I just had ideas for things that I could do. I, uh, I'd been involved with some education organizations when I was in college. I just, you know, thought of things that I would want to do. And the grant writing was once you've got what the general parameters were. And one would think if you had a, uh, a college degree, you should be able to figure out how to write a grant. And so that took a little while, but I, I did. And then I began to work for the Maine arts commission coordinating their education programs, became the assistant director there and then was there in various positions for eight years and then became director

8:36at Haystack in 1988, fall of 88 and stayed there till May 2015. Yeah. I mean, not enough time has probably passed, but have you, well, how do you think about your legacy at Haystack or the direct influence? I mean, you started a writing program that that was the first one of its kind. And that's kind of a thing that I know Penland offers a residency for a writer right now as someone who's a craftsperson in a way and also a different kind of thinker

9:09to be around kinds of artistic thinkers. Um, but to go back to the question. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, the great thing about being at Haystack is, uh, was, uh, the scale of it is it's, uh, it's small enough that you can develop an idea and carry it out. And it's big enough that you can, you can come up with a big idea. So it's not, um, it can be pretty agile in terms of setting up programs. If you want to try something, you can try it for a two week session. It's not like you're making a big policy decision for five years. You're

9:43just saying, let's try this. And if that works and you can, you can fine tune it. So in a way it was kind of ideal scale to be able to develop projects and to, uh, because of the design of the campus, everything's close to, uh, all the studios are close together that anybody you bring in to do something, you're already in an immediate relationship. So you can see the value of having different, uh, art forms represented and just the kind of conversations that take place. So it seemed pretty natural evolution. And I was really in

10:17a lot of ways following, uh, Francis Merritt, who was Haystack's founding director. He, he had retired in 1977, but he was, uh, I think I had been to Haystack as a student. I'd seen the kind of work that he'd done in the seventies. He did a session with, uh, African crafts people, people from Europe and Japan. Um, and just was always innovative in the way he was looking at craft and interpreting it pretty broadly. So I, in a lot of ways, when I got there, I felt like I wanted to kind of build on his legacy and, and follow his lead. Uh, and there

10:50was already a tradition of that too. So I was fortunate.

Stu's Time at Haystack

10:52At Haystack, right. Um, what were you as a student there? In ceramics. Were you? Yeah. Have you, you don't use, you don't go, you're not in clay? Not really. I mean, I, no, no, I, but I was a potter probably for, after I, uh, came to Maine, I apprenticed with a potter and was worked for him for a year. And then he said, you should go to a place like Haystack or Penland. So I went to Haystack and, uh, it was great. And then, uh, was off my own for probably four years teaching and, you

11:25know, selling work, but I don't think I ever really, I never had a teacher or a program where I could really, uh, and I think maybe at that time I wasn't thinking that way, but where I could really develop a vision for the kind of work I could make, you know, and I, when I would see workshops at Haystack and see how people had, um, would work with people in terms of developing their styles or their voices. I, I wish that I had had somebody like that, but, uh, but I, it was, it really informed how I look at materials and working and the studio process. I

11:55think that was part of, you know, being at Haystack was already knowing what that was like from that, from the student perspective. Uh, did that, how did that influence working with language? Did it, I mean, did it? It did. Well, you know, less being a potter, uh, although I think probably metaphorically, I like the idea of, you know, craft and making and transformation. Uh, and I think, but being at Haystack in writing, I think I began to see words as a material, clay as a material and the way that you can, uh, fuss with it or adjust it

12:29or understand it, uh, that are really closely related. It just doesn't dry out. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. That's like the best way to put it. Yeah. You can dry out, but the, but the words don't. Yeah. So it's definitely a different rhythm, you know, that you don't have, uh, uh, as much like with, with a craft. I think there's times when you can actually work on the, the thing around the making more like you could, you could put on kiln wash and you don't think, am I doing

13:02this right? Once you know how to do it, you know? Right. In writing, I think there's more like, or just to wrestle with what am I trying to say? You know, there's less, uh, uh, craft time, I guess. I mean, that's the wrong word for it, but less time around, like, it's not like I'm going to put a new ribbon on the typewriter and get ready to go. It's, you know, it's like, but with clay, there's a certain thing. Like if you're not feeling, you can do something that will move you toward the process, but you're not in the process. And I, I kind of like that when you go

13:35around because you can just, you can still be a part of it and there's a rhythm to that. Oh, you can spend days doing, not making a thing. Right. Just getting ready to make a thing. Yeah. I think people spend, I mean, I know there's people who have cold careers like that. Yeah. Um, can you talk a little bit about, um, early writing influences? Yeah, I was, uh, well, the first poem I wrote was in, uh, in elementary school that I remember, but probably the biggest influence when I got to be maybe, you know, 14, 15 was reading some of the beat poets. Yeah. Like

14:07Lawrence Ferland Yeti. Sure. I liked the language that was contemporary, that it was about things that seemed to be of a current moment. And the words had a pacing that was remembering Kerouac and being like, whoa, this is, it's like happening on, I don't know, the time was compressed. So it seemed like it was, everything was actually happening right as I was reading it. Right. Yeah. Especially with Kerouac. Yeah. Right. And very, and alive and, and of the time that you're in and not, not, uh, writing as a puzzle that you were on the wrong end of, but writing as something that

14:42you could, you could understand and be moved by. I think that was, so that I think probably in kind of late junior high, I began to think about that. And then in high school and then I wrote through, you know, in college, um, and it probably wasn't until I, uh, was out of college, maybe, I don't know, probably six or seven years, man. I was always writing, but I began to develop what felt like a voice that was my own voice. Can we go back to the beats? Yeah. Was that a, when you read that, did that make you feel

15:14like anyone could write? Did it seem like that? I think it made me feel like I could, I could, I could kind of misbehave a little bit like with Lawrence Ferland Yeti. Yeah. You know, there's a kind of, well, there's a hipness to it, but it's also like, like counterculture. I mean, it's early counterculture really. And I think that idea that you could, it was like rock and roll, I guess. You know, I think that's what probably attracted me is, uh, like, uh, uh, uh, kind of voice of rebellion in some way. And so the music you're listening to

15:46as you were reading, you were reading this stuff, was that like, do you just like go to jazz, like find jazz records or straight rock and roll? Yeah. Yeah. But the sixties is the sixties. Beatles, Dylan, Dylan, their stones. Yeah. Anything. I mean, I was curious, like any couple, there's like one or two albums that, I mean, I have one or two albums from very specific, almost all points in my life where it's like that sums up. Right. Well, I think Bob Dylan was always, uh, uh, always amazed me. His, his, uh, his writing ability, you

16:20know, you look at the output over, uh, you know, from 1966 to 19, you know, to the early seventies, it's just like, it's unreal. Yeah. It's crazy. It's like he was possessed. Yeah. And that's only something that the relationship, I mean, everyone has a different relationship with someone like Bob Dylan. Mine was hearing it come out of speakers in a studio of people I didn't really get along with. And so I'd make that association with Bob Dylan. And then only recently have I kind of latched on and been kind of blown away. Right. Like

16:52every song, every, it could be the same song over and over and over. It's like, this song does not get old. Right. It doesn't, it only gets, I understand less of it the more I hear it. Yeah. What does that even, I mean, it's kind of amazing that someone is able to do that. Yeah. And he just donated his, uh, or his negotiating, donating his papers to a museum in Oklahoma. Oh, is that right?

Influences and Writing

17:11There's an article in times about it. And there might be another place where they are, but he really kept like all his notes and, and did a lot of editing, rewriting, even though it's very spontaneous sound to it, you know? Um, yeah, pretty amazing. He was pretty, um, uh, like he knew how he was going to dress. He spent time. It looks like he was a mess, but calculated about how everything took forever. Yeah. You know, I've never seen and yeah, it's funny. And then there's the, um, don't look back documentary. Right. And

17:43that takes you on another, like, Oh, he's actually, he can be a complete jerk. Right. Like at the drop of a hat, you know, it's still be kind of have this mystique about him. Anyways. Um, um, so rock and roll on the radio AM station FM FM at that point. Were your parents into that? No, they didn't like it at all. No, they're okay with it. I think it's just like this horrible thing. Yeah. Get out of the house. Don't play rock and roll. No, they were okay. Every pair. I mean, you hear stories about the generational divide between people

18:17who fought in the war and their kids and like the big differences. So I'm just trying to get out. No, I think they were pretty understanding. I don't think they wasn't a big deal. Just didn't want to hear it. No. Right. I mean, if you're the, I'm the youngest of four kids. So by the time you come along, there's a lot of things that have happened that you can kind of do a lot of things that maybe an older sibling would have had a harder time. Absolutely. Yeah. How old is your oldest sibling? 10 years older. 10 years older. Yeah. Was that a brother or sister? Brother. Yeah. Did he turn you on any music or any writing or any, any, no, it's more

18:53my, my, uh, he was listening to classical music, but my other brother and my sister listened more to, you know, rock and roll and, and my sister read, uh, some beat poetry. Yeah. And then you read it after her. Yeah. So you had someone around the house. You had someone to kind of give you some, you weren't alone in that kind of cultural stuff. Yeah. You could see it as a cool thing. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Um, and you grew up in Jersey. Yeah. And if

19:23I recall correctly, you were in the car with your parents and you said the air smells like Vaseline and you said, you should write that down. You should write that down. That's what poets do. He said, yeah, I was in fifth grade. I really love that. Yeah. I'm thinking about that sentence. Yeah. So did you, did you kept writing that, those things that you'd kept, would you write down things that people would say? I've read some things down, but I think it's more looking back. I really thought about that, that there was a first that it was kind of an unusual comparison. I mean, it's, I suppose you might say it stinks here, but I said the

19:54air smelled like Vaseline, which seemed perfectly now. I wasn't stretching to say it. I mean, it's how I felt about it, but I think looking at what I became or I'm trying to become as a writer is that to, you know, say the things that I are in me that I want to say, how to say those the best way within my voice. And in a way that was kind of that, that moment, even though it's, you know, decades, I think in the making. Pivotal though. Yeah. And I mean, the idea that your father, like that's what poet, like there was a thing as

20:28a poet that exists in the world. Right. I mean, I didn't come from a family of who my parents were like, well, you know, a dancer would do a singer or a poet. That was never a thing that even existed. Yeah. It is pretty unusual if he said that's what doctors do. Who knows what would have happened to me? Very different conversation. And I was thinking about that driving down here and I was also wondering any other, did any other things stick in your mind like that? Or did any of the kind of sentence or organization of words that has kind of kept like a little buoy or a little

21:04landmark in your mind over the years?

21:09I don't know. I think sometimes it might be just like seeing other people or hearing other people, just seeing what they do and thinking, you know, something's possible because that person did that. I could do that kind of thing. Like hearing other writers. But nothing like that. Like in that moment, I don't know how to think about it. You know, I remember in junior high reading a poem by Lawrence Ferrell and Getty. We had to memorize a poem for a poetry unit.

21:43And so I chose one that describes Jesus as a square type guy from a square type place like Galilee who starts claiming he's Hepta who made heaven and earth. And the cat who really laid it on us is his dad. And I thought that was just so cool that you could say that in school. And it's funny too. Yeah. But, and then I don't know if it was maybe, what was the reaction? It just, it just went by. It was okay. It, like the, I don't think the teacher, she didn't

22:18say anything. Like you can't, don't, you're not allowed to say a poem like that here. It wasn't like a freedom of speech issue, but it just felt like, but I think I knew I was kind of pushing in some way. Yeah. Um, was it, uh, I mean, part of writing poetry is reading poetry because it needs to be heard, to be understood as far as I understand. So, um, did it take you a while to be comfortable reading out loud?

22:49Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I think that when I began to read the most out loud really is at Haystack, I would always introduce the presenters every evening for the programs. And I would, uh, pretty early on, you know, within the first year started to choose poems that kind of spoke to something that happened that day or the work that somebody did or some issue with creativity. So I really got used to reading a lot of poems to people, other people's poems. And, uh, and, uh, when you read poems a number of times, you really start

23:20to get to know them. You know, they feel like yours. I mean, you get to know them. It's like you're inside them in a way. And, uh, yeah, I think that makes a big difference. I read poems at the end of my workshop days, like five o'clock hour. People will get a beer or go to dinner. And it's a nice, it's a nice, uh, pause and like moving on. Cause we also spoke in Kansas city about, um, the fact that Garrison Keillor has read your poems a couple of times

23:51on writer's almanac. And when I lived in Maine, I was at watershed. And at that point it might be different now, but why writer's almanac would come on at nine o'clock, which is when we were brought to wrap up dishes for breakfast. So then it was our studio time and it was like the perfect punctuation to a very busy morning. It was such a nice, very civilized way to kind of move along the day. Yeah. And someone read you a poem and I never experienced that before. It was always, um, kind of embarrassing if someone was reading a poem. Right. I think that

24:21like for me, it makes a shift from, uh, you're, you're not going to get it to, you're going to get it like, like you actually want to share with somebody not to make them uncomfortable or not to, uh, quiz them on it afterwards, but just to present it to them. And that's a different, I think a lot of times poetry gets taught like, well, what did, what would they really mean? And maybe what they meant is what they said and they're saying it the way they could say it, you know, so it's a kind of like poetry's quiz, I think can really

24:51like alienate a lot of people. Academicized, academic, if you take it through a graduate program, you can really drain it, the blood out of it. Yeah. Or trying to read like the notes on a Robert Laurel poem can really just kill it. At least for me. Right. And I don't, it's almost like, um, like hearing or watching Shakespeare. Like I know what's happening, but I have no idea what they're saying. Like I understand what they're saying, but I couldn't, talk like that or think like that. Right. Or it's almost like English as a second language,

25:23even though it's my first language. Right. Yeah. I think sometimes there are ways that you can take information in or words or language that are, um, or being in Mexico on a bus tour and everybody was Mexican except for me and the person I was with and it was all in Spanish and my Spanish was okay. But during that bus tour, I felt like I, the training wheels had come off and I actually wasn't translating what he was saying. I was just getting what he was saying. And I, I haven't had that experience in another language before. And it just felt

25:54like, uh, it's like, uh, like taking the leap kind of going right in it. And you, um, I think when people are writing or making visual work, you're not like trying to take you someplace, uh, to deceive you. I think they're went to that place cause that's the way they could go there themselves. And you try to understand it for that in that way. Um, and I think hearing a poem is a little bit like that, you know, it's a, it lets you be a part of it. And if

26:26you don't, I mean, some poems are harder to understand than others in the way the language is used. I mean, they're not simple, but I think, but if you, uh, but if you don't see it as something to make you stumble, but something that if you stay with it, you could get, that's a different way of looking at it.

Critique and Appreciation

26:42So is in that frame of thinking is critique and appreciation, are they mutually exclusive? Can you do both? I mean, to not, to take the poem as it, what it is, cause that's what the writer, the poet wanted to say, that's how they said it. Right. Is that a lot of times in like, even in craft school, we have critique time, like, well, why is this better than that? Or what's wrong here? I mean, there's with pots, there's a formality, there's rules, there's most of the time, right. There's elements of design, yada, yada, yada. But I think

27:16probably the same things would hold true. But I think today I was writing and I was thinking that, you know, that the challenge is, uh, you, when you're editing, you want to take out whatever doesn't need to be there and leave in everything that has to be there. And that's, that seemed pretty straightforward, but then like understanding what has to be there may not be, uh, uh, till you get a little distance on it, what you think has to be there may not need to be there. It got there because it's the thing that got you into writing the next

27:48line, but it may not be the line that's needed. And then, then there's the challenge of what you really wanted to say while you were writing, which is not, uh, I don't think anybody goes in and can say exactly what they wanted to say because they don't know it until they say it. And I think that's probably similar with, with making, you know, that you, you, uh, there's not an ideal thing that you were trying to get to. The getting is in the making and the doing. Yeah. I mean, there's an ideal that you, but the only way to get there, which

28:22maybe is never going to happen is, I mean, you have to work toward that. Right. You'll know when you get there. Someone's like making is also chiseling. Yeah. It's not, it's addition and subtraction. Yeah. You're, you're uncovering what maybe you, you didn't know was there or what, you know, it's like, uh, it's a kind of, it's a journey. It's a kind of discovery process. Yeah. Yeah. What do you, uh, what are you reading? Do you read, I mean, you see the New Yorker, but that doesn't mean you're reading it cause that's the New Yorker. Yeah. Is there anything you read consistently? Well, uh, monthly or weekly or, um, well, I, I, you

28:58know, we get the New Yorker, but I, you know, today, uh, when I came here to Oregon, I brought, um, poems by Ted Couser and Robert Pinsky. Ted Couser. I'm sorry, I keep cutting you off, but I'm excited about it. Cause Ted Couser was the insurance salesman, right? Yeah. Yeah. He was a poet laureate. Yeah. That's so amazing. And he has a column called American life and poetry where he has, uh, um, Prince poems and newspapers all around the country. Oh really? Yeah. I just love that he went from his home, from his insurance shop and wrote

29:28poetry. Yeah. It's to such a degree that he's, he was like the capital P poet for America for a year. That's amazing. I think that's, I love that story. That's when he started this American life and poetry series when he was a poet laureate. And, uh, I was just reading an interview with him, uh, cause April's national poetry month. So I'll become a big time for poets. And, uh, and in the interview he said, he thought you should read a hundred poems for every poem you write, which is not something a lot of people do, but you know, that just

29:58that you actually are immersed in it. It's like if people want to make pots, they should be looking in pots. A lot of pots. Yeah. A lot of pots. And then they can make them, but they, they know that they're part of a bigger family of makers. And, uh, it's also a way to collect inventory too. Yeah. You can understand what kind of gestures you can make cause somebody else made something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Or good things to steal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know Ted Gooser? Yeah. You do? He was at Haystack as a visiting writer. Oh, so this is a great, so did you bring in all your favorite poets as residents? Yeah. Or people I want,

30:32who I want to know gets into their work. Same with the, yeah. Same with inviting people to teach, but people like, uh, Naomi, she had Nye and, uh, Stephen Dunn, Ted Cooser, um, and, uh, Richard Blanco was there last year. Um, for like a couple of weeks. Yeah. They're like a two week session and they just can hang out and they can write and they'll lead informal activities in the afternoons with people. Oh, that sounds like so much fun. Yeah. Well, how was the, I mean, it's different with everybody in different kinds of whatever

31:08workshop you're working in, but the reception when a writer and artist, a writer in residence or a guest writer would come in and they had these informal, excuse me, informal activities or projects. How was the, how was that received for, I mean, on average? Oh, oh, really well. Yeah. You know, I think people are surprised that they, uh, well, they get to hear the person read too. So they get a sense of what the work is like and get to know them. Some people work on like projects while they're there that a lot of people get involved in, uh, so they could see that,

31:41that part of the, the writer too. And we did the same thing with jazz musicians and some other, generally not people working in visual arts. Cause I felt like that would compete with the people in the studios, but, but other art forms. I think it just opens up how you're looking at things. You know, it's not, they're not all analogous, but you can begin to see the, some common thread of creativity, you know, in all the disciplines. Right. And hopefully, um, and part of the idea maybe is to open up people to different ways of thinking and on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. I think

32:15like, like writers, I think it's good for them to see people just like making stuff. It's different than, than, uh, um, you just write in it and you have to like figure out how things work. You have to fix them. And I think, you know, writers may be, um, there's less of that. I think it's healthy to see it. I think it's just good to shake things up and see what other people do. Yeah. Yeah. It's also a solitary. Yes. Yeah. Right. It's like, like the kind of sense of community that you have

32:46in among makers is very, I think very different. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we're almost out of time. Yeah. So, um, well, we talked at Inseeka because you were honored as a fellow honorary member, honorary member for the work you've done at Haystack. Um, well, that's, I don't have a question on it attached to that unless I take this part out. Um, do you see yourself

33:24working within the community of craftspeople even though you've left it or you've been, you're retired? Yeah. I'm actually, I'm, I'm, I'm chair of the American craft council now and working with this consortium of craft schools too. Right. Uh, so yeah, I definitely want, uh, I think not being at Haystack, I can still work on creative projects involving to me what's really exciting is like, uh, like craft and technology, uh, interdisciplinary

33:57work. And the other thing I'm become interested in, you know, we talked about this earlier, it's just how to make the craft field be more like the face of America, which it isn't right now, you know, and, uh, that, that involve groups that, that have craft traditions. And you know, the craft tradition that we celebrate is a pretty, it relates to other cultures and it, you know, venerates historic cultures, but to actually bring in people within who are

34:27living now in our own country, you know, is, is, uh, is more of a challenge and one that's necessary, I think, because, because it's great for people to understand creative processes across cultural barriers. And because, uh, that's, uh, it helps people understand one another better. That's really at the heart of it. You probably have to go get them. Yeah. And I think to make it feel like it'd be great. You have to, the schools have to physically go

34:58get those people and work with them where they are and then bring them back and have it also be a place where you can recognize yourself. So if you go someplace and think, uh, says nothing in common with anything I know or anything, you know, it's not just like a colonizing. I think it's got to be more integrated culturally. And so it's, it's definitely a challenge that a lot of, all programs face right now. Absolutely. But to find the nice thing about the, what I find exciting about the craft schools is it's, they're small enough. They're big enough. Like, like thinking of what I said about Haystack earlier, it can

35:31be like a, it's like a demonstration model. Like we can, you could put the effort of five or six schools together to work out how, what the issues are working together. They can have a bigger footprint and, and, uh, it's short enough. It's like a two week period, three week period. You can make some changes and see how they work. It's not like you're trying to have somebody there for four years. Right. Like at Haystack, it wasn't a five year policy plan. It was, it just, it's a two big thing. It's not a big deal. Right. If it doesn't work, you just start over again and do something else. Yeah. And so there's a website for that,

36:04correct? Yeah. It's called craftschools.us. Okay. And it's still, this is a thing that's ongoing. This project is kind of working. You guys are working out the kinks and there's going to be programming. It's all be all through the schools, but there's, but initiatives that we might do like, uh, increasing, uh, diversity would be something we're all embarking on together. Okay. So this is a, we'll see this kind of progress over some time. I hope so. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Stuart, do you have a website? Um, well I do, but there's nothing

36:35on it. Where can we buy your books? Uh, well through, uh, the publisher's Dearbrook editions or through Amazon. And I was just, since we spoke last, I was appointed poet laureate of Maine. Congratulations for the year for five years, for five years. That is a five year plan. Yes. What kind of, I have to, I want to know what, what do you have to do? Is that nothing? I don't have to, I don't have to do anything. It's ceremonial, but I'm looking at developing programs like, like the kinds of things I did at Haystack, I think, but I have to think about a little bit. It just happened, but there's a poet laureate page

37:08too on the, uh, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance website. Oh, congratulations. That's great. Yeah. Thanks Stuart. Yeah. Thank you. That's awesome.

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