Community involvement is nothing new for Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

Though its famed summer workshops draw artists from around the world, the school’s locally based efforts are equally impressive: a mentorship program for area students, residencies for Maine artists, and the 1999 Hallelujah project with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, which included 50 dancers from Deer Isle and Stonington and 10 from the company.

But Haystack’s latest work-in-progress, a year-round facility in the heart of Deer Isle village, sends a clear message to island residents: We’re here. All year. Come join us.

“We’ve had a history of [outreach], but we’ve never had a permanent winter residence,” director Stuart Kestenbaum, said recently at Haystack’s Center for Community Programs, located in the former Blue Heron Gallery. “We wanted to do more in the community and this seemed like a nice scale.”

The center has kicked off its inaugural cold-weather season with the international Beaded Prayers Project, which runs through Dec. 16 in the newly winterized barn gallery. The related exhibit, “Beaded Blessings,” has traveled to more than 25 venues since its inception in 1999. Directed by Haystack board vice president Sonya Clark, it consists of thousands of small, embellished prayer satchels inspired by African amulet traditions but created by members of the communities the show visits.

“It reflects community and builds community as it moves from place to place,” said Clark.

She compares the exhibit to a giant quilt and the camaraderie that develops in the prayer-making workshops to a quilting bee. In Deer Isle, nearly 30 residents came together to craft amulets of their own – one to keep and one to contribute to the show.

“It was pretty wonderful in the sense that it brought together a number of community members – some people hadn’t had that experience [of creating art] and some of us had,” said Mary Howe, a book artist from Stonington. “We were all making these little packets and trying to work out what it was we wanted to say. Then the sharing became among all of us – we were able to have conversations, and it became a community project.”

The participants came from all walks of life – some artists, some not – and ranged in age from 20s to 70s. Some were local teachers who plan to include African studies in their curriculum. Others just wanted to see what the project was all about.

Clark, a fiber-art professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, first came to Haystack as a work-study student in 1992 and has returned religiously since then. Though she’s used to working with members of the international craft community at Haystack, she relished the chance to collaborate with area residents of diverse backgrounds.

“Haystack already has an international reputation. By making sure that international reputation is shored up by its local and regional participation … you attract a slightly different audience,” Clark said. “If people don’t own the art in their own environment, it’s true, something can be lost, some of that local flavor, which is what’s so wonderful about Haystack and so wonderful about Maine.”

Appealing to the community at large was exactly what Kestenbaum and his colleagues at Haystack had in mind when they envisioned a year-round facility.

Haystack’s summer campus, a cluster of cedar-shake buildings tucked among Deer Isle’s spruce trees and granite cliffs, is perfect for the warmer months. But the school’s board members and staffers have long wanted a facility that would be suitable for winter use.

“I think we’re always working on that,” Kestenbaum said. “This is a great confluence of where our planning and opportunity came together.”

Thanks to a bequest from longtime trustee Charles Gallis, Haystack purchased the building – owned by the late Mary Nyburg, another Haystack devotee – in the winter of 2006 and renovations began.

In June, an exhibit of high school students and artists in Haystack’s mentoring program opened in the barn gallery, but “Beaded Blessings” marks the first cold-weather show in the newly winterized space.

“In some ways it’s similar to the ‘Hallelujah’ project because it’s national in scope, and we want to have that national level for our own community,” Kestenbaum said. “But we also want to have local exhibits and summer exhibits featuring people who have taught at the school or been students at the school.”

The new facility not only provides a venue that showcases the work of Haystack students and faculty, but a narrative through which visitors can learn the history and mission of the school and gain a greater understanding of the creative process. It’s also highly visible, especially at night.

Builders recently broke ground on an addition, which will connect the barn to the main house. A lending library is in the works on the house’s ground level, while living quarters for visiting artists or interns are planned for upstairs. For the center’s main entrance, mosaic artist Eddie Dominguez, who installed a large, vibrant mural at the Island Nursing Home, has designed a piece in honor of Gallis.

“We want it to evolve organically,” Kestenbaum said. “The campus is pretty far away from town, and this allows us to be in a place where people can drive by and come in. We’re really at the start of it.”

“Beaded Blessings” is on view through Dec. 16 at Haystack’s Center for Community Programs, located on Route 15 in the heart of Deer Isle. For more information, call 348-2306.

Kristen Andresen may be reached at kandresen@bangordailynews.net or 990-8287

Community centered

New Haystack facility expands year-round offerings – such as the Beaded Prayers Project – for Deer Isle-Stonington residents