Grants, awards, and exhibitions

  • 2025 Mortise and Tenon Research Grant, Brooklin, Maine.

    2019 Indiegogo Crowdfunding Campaign, in partnership with The Apprenticeshop, Rockland, Maine.

    2019 Niigata Arts Council, Niigata, Japan.

    2018 Traditional Small Craft Association, Rockland, Maine.

    2017 Asian Cultural Council Japan/China Fellow, New York City.

    2017 Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

    2016 The Freeman Foundation, Honolulu, Hawaii.

    2016 Asian Cultural Council Ambassador Program, New York City.

    2016 Lake Champlain Basin Program, Grand Isle, Vermont.

    2014 Asian Cultural Council and the United States-Japan Foundation, New York City.

    2014 Lake Champlain Basin Program, Grand Isle, Vermont.

    2014 American Craft Council Rare Craft Fellowship Award, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

    2012 Kyoto Gakuen University, Kyoto, Japan.

    2010 The State of Craft, Vermont Crafts Council and the Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vermont.

    2008 Nippon Foundation, Museum of Maritime Science, Tokyo, Japan.

    2008 Center For Wooden Boats, Seattle, Washington.

    2008 Asian Cultural Council, New York City.

    2008 United States-Japan Foundation, New York City.

    2007-2008 Shelburne Museum and the Bard Graduate Center, Shelburne, Vermont and New York City.

    2007 Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkacho), Tokyo, Japan.

    2005 Michinoku Traditional Wooden Boat Museum, Aomori, Japan.

    2002 The Freeman Foundation, Stowe, Vermont and New York City.

    2001 Kodo Cultural Foundation, Sado Island, Japan.

  • 2024 ESCALE Festival Sete, France
    Led students in the construction of a traditional Japanese boat at a major maritime festival.

    2023 Australian Wooden Boat Festival Hobart, Tasmania
    Exhibited a student-built Japanese river boat in Oceania’s largest maritime festival.

    2017 Lowell’s Boat Shop Amesbury, Massachusetts
    Built a traditional Japanese tub boat as part of a two-week demonstration. 

    2016 Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum Kobe, Japan
    Over a six-week period built a traditional fishing boat in the Museum’s exhibition gallery and led a series of public boatbuilding workshops.

    2016 Himming NPO Himi, Toyama, Japan
    Researched a local small boat design called a tabune, or rice field boat, and built a replica as an exhibition at the Totoza Center in Himi, Toyama.

    2014 Mizunoki Museum Kameoka, Japan
    Built a river boat as an exhibition with apprentices.

    2013 Setouchi Festival Takamatsu, Japan
    Juried craftsperson for a major international arts festival.  Built a twenty-foot traditional Japanese boat as a public demonstration with two apprentices.

    2002 Niigata Prefectural Museum of History and the Kodo Cultural Foundation Nagaoka and Kodo Village, Japan
    Built two tub boats, an indigenous watercraft, one at each institution as public exhibitions, training an apprentice.

    2001–2002 Tri-Coastal Marine, Inc. Crown Point, New York
    Served as shipwright and project manager building a 50-foot replica of a Nineteenth-Century Lake Champlain sailing ferryboat for the Lake Placid/Essex Country (New York) Visitors Bureau. Construction took place at a New York State Park and was open to the public.

    2001 Urayasu History Museum Urayasu, Chiba, Japan
    Worked with master boatbuilder Nobuji Udagawa building a traditional wooden boat as a public exhibition. 

    2000 Peabody Essex Museum Salem, Massachusetts
    Built a traditional Japanese tub boat in Suggestive Curves, an exhibit of boats from around the world.  

    1995 Lake Champlain Maritime Museum Ferrisburgh, Vermont
    Boatbuilder and project manager building an accurate replica of an 1886 sharpie yacht as a public demonstration at ECHO, the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain. 

    1993 Grant House Folk Art Center and Heritage Trust of Clark County Vancouver, Washington
    Timber framer and project manager for the construction of an authentic fur trade-era carpenters shop.  

    1992 Grant House Folk Art Center Vancouver, Washington
    Led the construction of a 25-foot cutter, a replica of the first European vessel to explore the Columbia River, part of a bicentennial celebration for the City of Vancouver. 

    1985–1990 San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park San Francisco, California
    Responsible for the construction of replica boats in the Museum's demonstration boat shop. All work in the shop was open to the public.

Douglas Brooks holding the 2014 Rare Craft Fellowship Award wooden plaque from the American Craft Council.

Receiving the Rare Craft Fellowship Award from the American Craft Council.