Meet Our Instructors:

Farm Pickings

News and Updates from Sanborn Mills Farm

— January 9, 2023 —

The 2023 Workshop Schedule at the Farm

Opens Soon — Register Today

The full 2023 schedule of workshops at Sanborn Mills Farm is now available at the Farm’s website, with the first workshop, “Mark Making with Handmade Brushes and Drum Leaf Book Structure,” beginning on April 1. Begin your exploration of what’s on offer this year by clicking here to see the workshops listed by date.

Please note: Many of our workshops fill quickly, so the sooner you register (or purchase a gift certificate) to reserve a spot in a particular workshop, the better.

The new schedule is significantly expanded, with 15% more workshops than in previous years and 20 new-to-us instructors. Included is an entirely new block of workshops focusing on woodworking; some of these workshops will be conducted in partnership with the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance. Also note that next year we will have a greater number of our popular basketry workshops and have added new topics in the blacksmithing series. We have new workshops on food preservation, gardening, and block printing. Old favorites are back, too, including working with draft animals, stenciling, rug hooking, and natural dye workshops.

What We’re Reading

Book of the Month

In the popular imagination, New Hampshire and Vermont are small-state twins, the Castor and Pollux of the New England states, snuggled against each other like sleeping kittens. Yet in truth they are vastly different — different in topography, in history, in politics, and in culture; more Lennon and McCartney than Zsa Zsa and Eva. The key to opening an understanding of one is to learn about the other.

“The Story of Vermont: A Natural and Cultural History,” originally published in 1999 and updated in a second edition in 2015, explores how Vermont became its own state (and state of mind) as opposed to an extension of New Hampshire, which it was for a time in the 18th century. The authors, both professors at Middlebury College, tell the story of Vermont through the interactions of the state’s natural and human components. Those interactions are why Town Meeting is serious business in Vermont, why dairy farms superseded sheep farms, why Vermont’s economy is much different than New Hampshire’s, and why Vermont has income and sales taxes while New Hampshire doesn’t. Vermont’s landscape and how it was formed continue to exert a powerful influence on the state’s politics and culture — there is a reason, after all, why “you can’t get there from here,” as the old Vermont road advice has it.

As Vermonter Bill McKibben writes in the forward, “The Story of Vermont” will help readers understand “why Vermont’s singular history matters so much.”

Photo Credits

Photo of Basketry Workshop by Lea Rossignol.

Cover of “The Story of Vermont: A Natural and Cultural History” courtesy University Press of New England.

Photo of Wendell Prillaman with sheep by Steve Bjerklie.

Meet Our Instructors:

Anne McMillan

This year, Anne brings her unique talents — she is a mixed media, book, and fiber artist — to Sanborn Mills Farm once again. This time, she will introduce a new book binding technique combined with explorations in mixed media. Her workshop, Mark Making with Handmade Brushes and Drum Leaf Book Structure, opens our 2023 workshop schedule on April 1 and is sure to be popular. The workshop extends over two days.

Anne uses printing methods, collage, found objects, and natural dyes in her art to convey a story. Her work is an eclectic mix of her life reflecting on past, present, and future. Each piece is a time capsule of life, a memory, and a story to be told. She is constantly exploring different techniques, book structures and materials, finding ways to combine them into her art. 

She has taught and shown her work locally and is a recipient of the SDA Award of Excellence. When not making books, you can find her spinning wool, rug hooking, or traveling. Her life in New England and educational and travel experiences have fostered her love of the traditional arts.

Her workshop will explore mark making and book arts over two days. From the process of making brushes using collected items from nature and other found objects and then using them to put mark to paper in free form expression, the workshop will experiment with marks made from these brushes on various paper. Day one is all about exploration.

Day 2 is about structure and the art of the book. Using the papers from the prior day, the focus will be on three different adhesive-based book structures using the similar technique of Drumming. The first two are the Japanese Flutter Book and Butterfly Book and the final book will be the Drum Leaf binding. The Drum Leaf Book is a perfect binding for photographers, printmakers, and all artist who would like to present their work in a structure that has a full page spread and opens flat.

To register for Anne’s April 1-2, 2023, workshop, click on Mark Making with Handmade Brushes and Drum Leaf Book Structure.