Does anyone here have any experience running or even just attending a community space that's a kind of drop-in art studio/creative workspace? Like somewhere that has a bunch of different art and craft supplies and tools, you can take your own project, you can speak with people there, learn new skills, try the stuff they've got, etc.
I'm interested in knowing what activities went on there, how you ran it or what you got from it as a participant, etc.
@welshpixie it's a lovely thread! Am in a slow conversation with a friend about setting this model up. She's done a lot of ad-hoc crochet meets in others' venues. Her hook for this is a "clothes swap cafe", bring people through the door, provide a small flow of income (tea is a quid, swaps are free, sell a few customised pieces as art)
I'd like a venue other groups can make their own, offer storage space for kit, provide basic infrastructure (machines for sewing, dye sub printing, tools for lino, etc). Reckon a subscription model for this, a bit like hackerspaces - a cheap monthly rate but for groups, rather than individuals
Hackerspaces ... are lovely for the people in them, many have craft areas, but their communities aren't motivated to be welcoming ( with some solid exceptions like @DoESLiverpool )
https://craftypirates.org.uk/ministry_of_imagination/ - there's almost nothing here, we'll move hosting soon, set up a wiki, it's a slow-burn, big-picture plan :)
@welshpixie @zool Can you use some of the existing space for occasional events? Before we started @DoESLiverpool we just ran a monthly #MakerNight event at the uni, which let us gauge interest and, more importantly, started building the community of folk who then became the volunteers who set up the business, took a lease, etc.
The artificial (not really artificial, as volunteer time is scarce) scarcity of one-evening-a-month (or similar) draws people together to gain the initial critical mass
@welshpixie @zool @DoESLiverpool w.r.t. rural Wales, I don't know how far south the Ffiws makerspaces got - https://www.ffiws.cymru/en/
@concretedog would be useful to chat to on that front; he's helped out with the ones near him in N Wales.
They were/are(? I've not kept track of things) a funded model, which I don't think is a useful approach. Lots of (well meaning) folk will tell you to apply for funding, and they'll be wrong in the same way that applying for VC is the way to do tech 😉
Calligrafae
zool
Adrian McEwen
concretedog