In a football field-sized woodworking facility in Warren, Maine, a micro-studio is producing fine handmade furniture that appears in regional galleries and furniture shows. Ultimately, these pieces will be destined for showplace homes and corporate settings throughout the world.
Students in the program – bound singularly by a love of craft – develop into a tight-knit community of woodworkers. Here they gain valuable experience that will benefit them after release from incarceration.
You'll learn how to use hand tools, power equipment, and cutting-edge technology to design and manufacture furniture. Experiment with exciting processes, study the historical and theoretical roots of contemporary forms, and engage in dynamic conversations around innovation and sustainability.
During the first year of your master's, you will strengthen your woodworking techniques and building strategies, while also developing a personal sense of creative expression and preparing for a thesis project. You will explore a broad range of contemporary practices and creative approaches to design and art-making that support experimentation, critical reflection, and the development of your personal aesthetic and design philosophy.
During the second year of your master's, you will further strengthen your woodworking techniques and building strategies while also refining a preliminary thesis topic. You will develop a final thesis project, and collaborate with the gallery coordinators and curators to exhibit a body of work.
As a student in our two-year Cabinet & Furniture Making program, you will have the opportunity to be mentored by industry professionals. You’ll learn the skills and techniques necessary to design a custom piece of fine furniture from scratch.
You’ll work from traditional 18th and 19th-century models that help you gain the confidence to design furnishings of any era. You’ll learn the basics of joinery, turning, carving and applying marquetry or veneers.
In addition, you’ll learn how to use various hand tools and power equipment in your pursuit of woodworking excellence. During your course of study, you’ll learn the benefits and limitations of these various techniques.
Our mentorship program allows you to build relationships that broaden professional networks and provide insightful feedback for real-world application. Each fall term, ArtCenter students are matched with industry professionals and participate in a 10-week mentorship exchange. Matches are arranged based on shared goals and interests between the mentor and mentee.
The Fine Furniture Program is one of the few colleges or universities that actually have a woodworking shop, and the best part is there are some genuinely talented folks here who make the experience worthwhile. The finely honed shop has a bevy of students, including some very gifted high schoolers who are the proud owners of their own small businesses. Besides the aforementioned high schoolers, the CFP has its fair share of professional and technical grads. A good majority of them have their own respective shop.
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