By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

HIRAM — The former sawmill buzzed with lively activity, music and the mingling of friends and newcomers.

In one building at the far end of the complex, a guest blacksmith Ryan Adams, of Bell Hill Forge in Otisfield, demonstrates the craft of blacksmithing by forging a rose for an audience. In the community garden, people paired off and explored the vast space where vegetables and flowers spread toward the blue sky of October, while potatoes waited in the earth for harvest time to come. In another building, Edney Guitars owner Alex Edney discussed the importance of using sustainable trees growing in North America to craft simple streamlined guitars as opposed to making guitars from rare timber from the rain forest.

On Saturday — as part of Maine Crafts Day — Tear Cap Workshops held an open house, giving the public a chance to get to know the tenants in the artisans complex.

Tear Cap Workshops is the brainchild of carpenter Henry Banks, who is the co-founder and the current executive director of Tear Caps Workshops. Henry Banks expressed his excitement about future tenants, John Plowden who will be making furniture from quality timber of trees he personally cut and hauled out of the Maine woods, and another person will be setting up a stone-carving shop. Both those buildings are in the process of being completed and will add to the number of tenants already at the complex.

Carol Banks, who is a former art teacher and an efficient multitasker, explained the essence of Tear Cap Workshops.

“This space offer classes in many different craft areas like basket-making, Eco-printing, pottery, ikebana, which is Japanese flower arranging, and dovetailing, which is making good joints in carpentry,” she said. “We have had a canoe paddle building class. It filled up fast.”

In the coming weeks, Tear Cap workshops will offer a class on hand dyeing from nature on Oct. 19, an all-day stone wall building class on Oct. 20, and a wooden spoon making class on Nov. 2, she said.

“We have the rent-a-bench program. If people have projects they are working on, they can come and use the tools and the equipment here. It is very well outfitted for that. If they need guidance, Henry [Banks] can help,” Carol said. “A couple weeks ago, there were three different people who came and they had some boards they needed planed. It seems to be a resource for the community.”

Carol Banks taught art part time at Denmark Elementary School for 16 years. After budget cuts ended her position, she signed up at Portland Pottery to learn something new. In late September, she led a hand-thrown pottery class at Tear Cap. 

Tear Cap has tenants spanning the trades, she said.

“There are several different studios. The tenants pay rent and come here to work. It is a nice community of artists,” Carol said.

Those tenants include: Andy Buck, Custom Timberframer; Bob Dietrich, Dietrich Woodworks; Alexander R. Edney, of Edney Guitars; Beth Richey, a painter; and John Plowden, of Forest Reflections.

On Saturday, Edney stood in one of the newer buildings that was a concrete slab when he first visited the site in 2021. Guitars hung from the ceiling and an unfinished one sat on his workbench. He has been at TCW for more than three years, and spent the first two crammed into what is now the office.

“I am grateful to have found my way here to Tear Cap. My landlord and the other artists are hugely supportive of what I am trying to do. They keep me inspired, and I’m around creative people in a setting that is inspiring all the time,” he said.

“I’ve worked out of my home in the past. This is the first professional off-site space that I’ve rented and have a business plan,” Edney said. “It has really been awesome because Tear Cap, just the way they are running the whole show, they make it really affordable for people like me to rent space and pursue a craft. The phrase, ‘art incubator’ gets used a little bit. That probably applies to me and this space. It gives me a really quality space to make guitars in, climate controlled, set up for what I need.”

“Mostly, I am in business as a repair person. I do guitar repairs, repairs on anything fretted —  not just guitars but also banjos, mandolins, ukuleles. My clients are local musicians, guitarists, people who are collectors of instrument who will ship things to me to have them restored,”  he said. “Most of my business comes from word of mouth. I have a simple business plan: Do good work, and treat people right and hope they tell a friend. It has worked for me.”

At first he was self-taught. Then, he traveled to Japan and learned his craft from a Japanese luthier.

“I’m mostly building guitars from domestic materials — wood that grows in North America. I don’t like using rain forest wood in my guitars. It runs against the grain of the guitar-making industry, which prefers to make guitars out of rare wood. I want to prove that you can build a good guitar out of wood that is plentiful and sustainable. You don’t have to harm the Eco-system to do it,” Edney said.

Tear Cap Workshops is located 22 Hampshire Rd in Hiram. For more information, check out tearcapworkshops.org Online or call (207) 625-3396.