MAYA STEIN

January 5th - March 31st

Maya Stein: PLOTHOLDERS

In November 2025, I took a potholder-making class led by Camden artist Richard Chalmers at Waterfall Arts in Belfast. I struggled at first—I was completely flummoxed by the loom, and how to follow a pattern—but I am a dogged troubleshooter, and Richard was generous to loan me some additional materials so that I could try again at home. It took only another couple of tries before I got the hang of it. After that, I was—as they say—completely hooked. I spent the next four months assembling one potholder after another, an activity that helped me survive the long months of Maine winter.

Throughout that winter, I also attended the bi-monthly Stitch Social gathering at Waterfall Arts, where I felt so buoyed by the happy industry of the group. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t officially a fiber artist—the sweet air of camaraderie inspired me to keep going (and going and going). This past summer, I shared my collection of 125+ potholders at the Bayside Arts Collectors' Day event in Northport. My work has also since appeared as part of two exhibits at Waterfall Arts— “Threaded Together” and “Does It Match the Couch,” the latter curated by fresco artist and painter Barbara Sullivan.

As a writer and poet, I find myself drawn to everyday encounters as resources for developing new work. In fact, the quotidian details that make up any given day feel like an unfolding and ongoing set of raw materials, always at the ready to be formed and coalesced into a piece of writing. I am drawn especially to the places where so much writing already exists—my email inbox and text messaging app—and have found these to be a surprising and delightful palette to help jumpstart new poems. In my “Plotholders” series, I dipped back into my inbox and used the subject lines of certain emails (some in my Spam folder, that treasure of word salad) as the titles for each potholder. Many of these I shared on social media, using the hashtag #plotholders. (You can search this hashtag to find more of my creations.)

All of the potholders in this collection are available for sale—$15 for the small potholders and $25 for the large. I will be donating 20% of the sales to two of my local food banks: The Northport Food Pantry and the Belfast Soup Kitchen. For purchase inquiries, email me at hello@mayastein.com. I want to thank Hey Sailor for so enthusiastically offering me wall space to share this work. And a big thank you goes to my wife Amy Tingle, who serves as Program Director at Waterfall Arts and also my very best cheerleader.

Maya Stein has been a freelance writer and editor for more than 25 years and has self-published five books and a handful of writing prompt guides. She facilitates workshops and retreats—live and online—and also works one-on-one with others to support their creative practice and bring new work to fruition. She recently served as the Belfast Poet Laureate from 2023-2025. For more info about Maya, visit www.mayastein.com