International Guild of Miniature Artisans

The International Guild of Miniature Artisans is an organization that was formed about 44 years ago to establish a community a learning community of people who really care about moving miniatures forward in the in the art field but we have moved from just promoting miniatures to actually education.

The Guild School is in a little town on the coast of Maine at the Maine Maritime Academy.

We go there and we have classes for six days and only artisans and fellows of the Guild can teach.

Mark is our most popular instructor.

He brings technical knowledge, knowing how to use power tools measurement kinds of things but he also brings another skill which is an aesthetic look at things because in miniature you can't always replicate exactly it doesn't work sometimes and he knows what you can do to make it look like it is real and how to make that piece really come alive.

So different than many other hobbies.

It's not competitive.

It's like the best of the best want to learn from the best of the best.

Our instructors always say they learn from their students and their students push them to be better artists.

Maybe about 20 years ago halfway through we started doing what we call Guild study programs.

The idea is that you can actually see the piece that you're making, the the full size piece that you're making You see the history of it.

The Gamble house designed by the architects, Greene and Greene it's a woodworker dream.

They designed all the furniture that went into the house.

Greene and Greene to me just had the most beautiful aesthetic.

The Miniature Guild did a study program at the Gamble House years ago and we've spent three days making one of the Greene and Greene chairs that we looked at.

We always say all you have to do is have a passion for miniatures and then you can join the Guild cuz that's all we want is people who love to see, make, collect miniatures.