Driving Myself to Sanity- Part 2- Boston.
For Part 1, feel free to go here.
Ah Boston. One of those places that I love for its strange history, lovely architecture, and amazing people.
I had met a whole new Bostinite crew when I had gone out to Firefly, and so had decided to touch base with a few of them. We arrived, once again in the middle of the night, having no idea where we were going. It was too late to find most normal things open like coffee shops or restaurants (it was only just after 10), and we wandered around the completely empty streets of downtown Boston searching for a meal and having no real idea where we were sleeping. Finally we found a bar that still had their kitchen open, and then headed to meet the friend we would be staying with at a club.
"What are we doing here?" I thought. After the beautiful Vermont mountains, swimming all day, being in the clean air and sunshine, it was quite a shock to enter into the big city once more.
AND THEN, we entered into the world of artist spaces.
The people we were staying with spend every waking moment in an extremely large warehouse. And every single inch and cranny of their space was chock full of artists making and creating. LED light displays, sculptures, paintings, collages, wall decorations, fun fur, stripper polls, adult sized ball pits, things to climb on, woodshops, black light rooms and people just making, making, making. It made me want to drop all my stuff and never go away.
Photo by Russell Azzalina
It was so inspiring to be around so many makers, and see so much space dedicated just to art. Everyone in there was working on something interesting.
The next day one of the people of the warehouse took us to another space so we could see what was going on there. And this place blew my MIND. It was what I had always dreamed of in regards to artist sharing space, energy and tools.
The Artisans Asylum is an open workshop where people can come to train, work and get inspired. For an extremely minimal fee you can rent your own space, or for a smaller fee you can have access to all the tools that are available there. And I am talking TOOLS.
Computer labs, rapid prototyping labs, full welding, wood and machine shops, electronics stations, bike shop, as well as jewelry making and fibre stations, this shop was by far the best set up artisans space I have ever seen or heard of. And it was HUGE.
Photos by Joseph Flaherty
This type of idea has been a dream of mine for decades. The idea of artists all working together to have access to the extremely expensive tools it sometimes takes to do your work is something I have always desired. It just makes so much sense! It was such an inspiring vision of what can happen when people work together. Sometimes when you do this type of crazy work, you think you're a little bit alone, what a magical place to show just how many of us are out there!!
New Hampshire and Maine to be continued...