Late on a rainy February afternoon, Brother Christopher Fair took a break from shaping wood for a small Shaker clock. It was mail time, and he finally got his long-awaited copy of “Spoon,” a sleek book that covers the best in industrial design over the last five years – from shoes to lamps.

But Fair, a Catholic Benedictine monk, wasn’t interested in shoes or lamps. As a student enrolled in the nine-month intensive program at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Fair wanted inspiration for his calling.

“I’m part of a long tradition,” Fair, 35, said, describing the sustainable timber harvesting and woodworking that has been going on at Saint John’s Abbey in Minnesota for the last 150 years. The abbey has long been a source of dorm and office furniture for nearby College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University, but the monks plan to move into more custom work.

“The community sent me here to brush up on my hand skills,” Fair said.

He’s a man on a mission. And he’s in the right place.

The center was started 12 years ago by a man on a similar mission. Peter Korn, a consummate craftsman, visited Maine several times in the early 1990s with the sole intention of starting a woodworking school. On his last trip, he landed in Camden, rented a post office box and placed an ad in Fine Woodworking magazine. That summer, he taught groups of six students for two weeks at a time in his back yard.

Since Korn had published a woodworking book earlier that spring, the classes filled up fast. There were waiting lists, so the next summer, he rented a larger space, invited other people to teach, and started offering 12-week sessions.

He figured a “destination resort” like the Camden-Rockport area would attract students. But he couldn’t have predicted those backyard classes would evolve into the CFC’s current campus, with three sprawling red workshop barns and a gallery-office space.

“There was no way to envision this,” Korn said, sitting at his desk and looking out the back window. “It’s so far beyond anything I imagined or thought existed at the time.”

That’s what students say, too. They range in age from late teens to senior citizens, and they come from as close as Camden and as far away as Australia. Many are making the leap from hobby to profession. Some are just interested in honing their skills for do-it-yourself projects. Whether they come for a weekend, two weeks, 12 weeks or nine months, they share common ground – and it has nothing to do with making a perfect dovetail joint, although they learn that, too.

“Hopefully everyone sees this as a creative endeavor,” Korn said. “Not necessarily wild and wacky creative, but we really encourage all students to get involved in the design. … They’re all looking at woodworking as a sense of fulfillment, whether or not they choose to do it professionally.”

Bangor native Andrew Bradford, 23, sought fulfillment when he enrolled in the nine-month intensive program. As he molded thin strips of wood into spirals, he explained that he wasn’t happy studying architecture in Boston.

“I figure it’d be really neat to take a break and come up here,” he said. “It’s going quite well.”

He’s not sure what the future holds for him. He would like to find a way to combine furniture-making skills with his architectural background. For now, he’s content making a cane for his grandfather, but his classmate Akiko Yokoyama, 36, is at a turning point in her career.

A native of Japan who came to the United States for education and a job, Yokoyama recently resigned from her post as the international human resources manager for Coca-Cola.

“In my culture, you have to do this and do that – medicine, law, business,” said Yokoyama, who came to Rockport from Atlanta, Ga. “I worked in the corporate world for the longest time, but I finally decided to just jump into this.”

It was a calculated jump, however. Her design sense is evident in the sophisticated, curving lines of a stool formed by four interlocking pieces of bent wood. During a recent visit, she was refining her plans for a bench of contrasting woods.

“I guess I’m curious where I can go at this point,” Yokoyama said. “I purely enjoy the process of furniture making and defining my own design vocabulary. If something comes out of this, it would be wonderful, but I know it’s going to be hard.”

The transition may be easier for Jason Goodman of Friendship, a student in the 12-week course. The construction and renovation business is booming in the Midcoast region, and he hopes to ply his trade making custom cabinetry, doors and windows. But at CFC, his pursuits are more musical – a guitar for his brother, and a flamenco drum stool.

Goodman said he has learned to work more efficiently, but at the same time, he has been nurtured by the freedom of exploration that the school provides.

“When there’s a lot of creativity and a lot of people speaking the same language, there’s a combustibility,” he said. “It’s alive here. It’s really exciting to be a part of this school.”

That’s what the instructors say, too. Tom Hucker, a studio furniture maker from Jersey City, N.J., has taught two sessions at CFC. His work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. And he enjoys sharing his knowledge with students who truly want to learn the craft.

“Unlike an academic situation, they just do woodwork,” Hucker said. “They’re not running off to their English class, worrying about their GPA. … There’s a nice spirit to the place.”

Though the school has grown, that spirit hasn’t changed. What started as a small, one-teacher workshop has grown into a full-blown campus with the finest machinery, high-end hand tools, state-of-the-art facilities and faculty from around the world. Since 1999, CFC has operated as a nonprofit, with a board of directors – Korn serves as its executive director.

“There are a lot of people that contribute to the school being so successful,” Korn said. “It’s really a group effort all around this idea that fine woodworking is this really very valuable form of human expression.”

The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship offers short and long classes and fellowships for woodworkers of all abilities. It is located on Route 90 in Rockport. For information, visit www.woodschool.org or call 594-5611.