purposely cracked the mold, Woell grimaced but took note and eventually found the practice liberating.

In addition to the hands-on education in Gallo's studio, Woell received degrees in the 1950s and 1960s at the University of Illinois (bachelor of fine arts in art education), University of Wisconsin (master of fine arts in metalwork) and the Cranbrook Academy of Art (master of fine arts in sculpture). This background enabled him to work in just about any medium. It also led to interdisciplinary aesthetics, exemplified by the sculptural attributes of many of his ornaments.

Woell honestly appraises his work, recognizing that some of the more outrageous pins can be worn only by the most courageous. It requires a lot of self-confidence, he notes with a chuckle, "to wear a crashing plane on your bosom." In terms of personal adornment, his jewelry has always been more sculpture than jewelry (it has been called "anti-jewelry").

Where only a handful of galleries in the United States dare carry his work—or have the clientele bold enough to wear it— museums across the country, from the American Craft Museum in New York City to the Contemporary Art Museum in Honolulu, have acquired pieces. His metalwork and sculpture have also been featured in such landmark exhibitions as "Objects: USA," "Poetry of the Physical," "The Eloquent Object" and "Tales & Traditions: Storytelling in 20th-century American Crafts." Recent shows include "North American Figurative Jewelry,"

nyone who has spent time at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in the past quarter century has probably met or heard about Woell, who first came to Deer Isle in 1973 to work with Francis Merritt, the founding director, He later returned when Howard Evans was director, then helped in the transition to the current head administrator, poet Stuart Kestenbaum. He recalls with fondness a workshop on forging led by Ronald Hayes Pearson at the school in the fall of 1980, From 1989 up until last year, Woell was maintenance coordinator at Haystack.
      The following statement appears in Haystack: 50 Years of Discovery, forthcoming from the University of Maine Press, with a foreword by Kestenbaum, book design by Michael Alpert and a preface by editor Carl Little.

Some years ago I came across a remark by environmentalist John Muir that has stuck with me to this day as a metaphor for what endears me to Haystack. "Thousands of nerve-shaken over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is necessary and that mountain peaks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."
Haystack is just such a place, where nature is respected and an individual can be in nature, can absorb it and be inspired by it in such a way that all the senses are enlivened and freed to explore their creative energies.

Plop Haystack into some metropolitan center with acclaimed architecture and the same curriculum, same instructors, same format to work and create, and it would not in any way bring about the same results. The posturing of the buildings to respect the extraordinary beauty of the place does much to make it work. However, it is nature itself that creates the mood and the possibilities that make the experience so powerful for people who go there.

The great lesson to be learned at Haystack is that we need spaces to create in, spaces that are quieting and which put us in touch with ourselves. The obvious natural beauty of the site is a successful example of this powerful statement. Nature needs to be integrated into our lives and protected for every generation to understand its healing tonic.

—J. Fred Woell