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Building Boats at the Brickyard

This whole thing started about 7 years ago.

At about the same time we were looking into starting up The Brickyard, we learned about the Haley Pilot School 5th grade boatbuilding program in Roslindale, which was founded by a young woman, Sarah Besse, who came from the Community Boatbuilding program in Boston.  Here’s what she told us:

Building boats develops a variety of skills and habits of mind transferable throughout life. Spatial thinking, nimbleness with three dimensional perception and recall is a key to academic success.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, “We suggest that spatial thinking is at the heart of many great discoveries in science, that it underpins many of the activities of the modern workforce, and that it pervades the everyday activities of modern life.”

Our testing shows that students’ spatial thinking skills grew by 56%. In addition to spatial thinking, building boats is a real-world application of mathematics. It also requires hand-eye coordination, safety skills, and above all, teamwork.

From that moment on, a boatbuilding program like this became a central goal of The Brickyard Collaborative.  There were a whole lot of things that had to come together to make it happen.  We needed space where kids could work, and set up the project for several days, if not a few weeks.  We needed qualified teachers.  We needed to find the kids.  Call it “crossing the streams”, for the 1980s movie buffs out there., but this Spring it started coming together.

Well, long story short, through the efforts of Frank Grealish, a veteran teacher in the Lynn Public Schools and his partners at Kayak and Sail Lynn, we started to put a plan together.  They contacted Community Boat Building in Boston, and we met up with Bob McCarty, who teaches their programs.  Community Boat Building was looking for ways to expand their programs into surrounding communties, and it was a perfect match.  We found 4 kids in the Lynn Schools through Frank’s efforts, and it was game on for April vacation.

Take a look at the progress photos, you can almost feel the enthusiasm:

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The community took notice as well.  The Lynn Daily Item ran a little piece on us, here, that got a lot of traffic on Facebook – last count over 2500 likes, 119 comments (all positive!) and 111 shares:

And then there was WCVB, Channel 5 TV.  Want to hear what the kids thought of the project?  Nothing speaks better than this:

4 students in Mass. build 10-foot boat from scratch during April vacation

Oh wait, that’s not the end of the story, by any stretch.  Once the boat is painted and checked out by the shop at Community Boat Building, Kayak and Sail Lynn will have a launch at the Blossom Street Extension dock on June 17th – save the date!

…and one final note.  To keep the program running, the Creative Cities Lynnspire Creative Placemaking Grant Program 2023 has awarded The Brickyard a $5000 grant!  Our next project?  Watch for us in August!

If it’s not too corny, (well, we’ve already quoted a movie from 1984, right?). “I love it when a plan comes together.”

It’s a testament to perseverance, all the folks who’s supported us, The Brickyard, the entire community, but above all, the kids who rolled up their sleeves and built a boat!

Want to help us out and keep the program going?  Donate now through PayPal!  Safe, reliable, and you can use your debit or credit card.  The Brickyard Collaborative is a fully accredited 501c3 non-profit, and your donation is tax-deductible.

Just click the button below!




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SO MANY THINGS!

We have SO MANY THINGS to tell you!

But first, did you see this story in the Lynn Daily Item?

Yeah, if you remember back to our very beginning, this has been a dream – it came together through the combined efforts of several dedicated people and committed organizations in the city…  more about that later, but we wanted to give these kids the shout they deserved.

But here’s some more good news: We’re relaunching our classes! 

Thanks to the efforts of Sally Jacobson, mixed media artist and photographer Stefanie Timmermann, we’re welcoming two workshops on Cyanotype printing to our new home on Western Ave!  To see our schedule and get details, go to the workshop pages on The Brickyard Collaborative website: https://thebrickyard.org/events-workshops-classes/

Here’s a tease for each of the two classes:

Cyanotype for Beginners: Learn how to make cyanotype prints in this 4-hour workshop.

This historical process first used by Anna Atkins in 1843 involves contact printing (subject is sitting on top of the prepared paper) objects and/or negatives onto light sensitive paper exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light.

In the workshop you will learn the basic process of cyanotype printing. You will leave class with enough experience and knowledge for you to begin a personal journey into this simple non-toxic art making process that can easily be done at home.

We will prepare our paper in a semi-darkened space, expose prints in the sun (a UV light source) and process them in water. The sun and weather will determine the intensity and sort of cyanotypes we produce that day. In case of inclement weather, we will alternatively use UV light boxes indoors.

By the time you leave you’ll have 4 gorgeous 8”x10” blueprints and the skills to create more at home.

Interested?  Tickets and details here, on Eventbrite

Experimental Cyanotype Printing: We will give a brief overview of the basic cyanotype process and then share some experimentation ideas such as wet-cyanotype, bleaching, and toning. After that you can dive in with our guidance. Bring your curiosity, ideas, and questions!!!

Materials: Emulsion, basic tools, standard watercolor paper, and some alternative substrates will be provided. Please bring other small natural materials to try and possibly to share such as natural fiber fabrics – cotton, silk, bamboo, wool, as well as wood, smooth stones etc. Please wear closed-toe shoes and old clothes. Bring an apron and a snack.

Tickets and details here: Eventbrite

Spring is here and it’s time to get out, stretch your legs, learn new things and MAKE STUFF!

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You’re Invited!  Vision Lynn at the Brickyard

You’re invited to join us at The Brickyard Collaborative for a Vision Lynn information session!

Vision Lynn Office Hours (English and Spanish)

Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7 – 1-4pm at our Makerspace at 760 Western Avenue.  Park in the CarQuest lot and come to our entrance at the rear of the building.

The Vision Lynn team will be in the Brickyard Collaborative space  looking for input on the City’s first-ever comprehensive plan. We’re digging deep into identifying what “good” development would look like in Lynn. As part of that work, we’re using two areas–Gearworks and Market Square–to test our ideas. Come stop by and chat.

The information will be the same as shared at the Vision Lynn Open House on Saturday, February 4 from 10:30-12:30pm at the Lynn Senior Center (37 Friend Street).

More info: www.lynnincommon.com/vision-lynn

Been curious about The Brickyard Collaborative’s new shop?  Informal “open house” tours will be available as well…  See you there!

 

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2023 – Five Years In

So wow. It’s been 5 years.

5 years since that first conversation at the coffee shop. 5 years since we had an idea, but nothing beyond that. 5 years since we incorporated, and applied for our first grant, and had our first workshops.

Where are we now? We have a 10,000 square foot facility, and 65 members. We have a full woodshop, metal shop, electronics, rapid prototyping, textile, digital printing and hot works shops. We are where we wanted to be 5 years ago, we are finally at the place where we can do what we’ve wanted to do.

What does that mean? That means teaching kids how to build boats with Community Boatbuilding, Lynn Tech, LEAP and Kayak and Sail Lynn. That means working with Bike to the Sea. That means partnerships with RAW Arts, Lynn Museum, GALA, Lynn Cultural Council, St Mary’s, KIPP, The Food Project and a host of others in this city.

When we signed the lease for our new space last March and ran the numbers, we projected about a year, maybe a year and a half before we filled the space. We’ve filled it in two months.

What does this say? This tells us we fill a need – a huge need for people to have access to the tools, the space, the knowledge and the community that a makerspace brings.

Over this five years we’ve grown from just an idea, to a small, 2500 square feet shop, moved to 4500 square feet to now 10,000 square feet… in the course of that we’ve made over 4000 pieces of PPE for the city of Lynn during the COVID crisis. We stored and distributed 6 tons of food to those in need in the city during COVD. We’ve created a free WIFI network in the downtown Lynn neighborhood and helped retail businesses use this to help recover from COVID. We got 8 pallets of hand sanitizer stations and equipment out to the community, including into the Mayor’s Office itself. We’ve helped launch a handful of small side gigs into actual businesses, and opened up tools and technology to over a hundred people in the community – members and non-members alike.

Five years ago we were at a hearing for the CDBG program – the Community Development Block Grant – a program that distributes Federal funds through local citizen’s committees, and at the hearing the chair of the Lynn committee said to us, “Who are you? You have nothing!” Well, this is who we are. And guess what? With what they called “nothing”, we changed this city, and this community.

Did we do it alone? Of course not, nobody does all this by themselves. We have been blessed by, and deeply appreciate all the help and support we’ve had in this town, the teams of volunteers in our member community and every week we see more.

And we’re only getting started.

Here’s to 2023, health, happiness, growth and creating amazing stuff for the coming year!

 

Keep making stuff. Take care of people, play nice and clean up after yourselves.