Parts and Crafts

Hi all. There’s been a big lull in Parts and Crafts activity, both on the internet and in the real world. I recently moved to Brooklyn and have been working on establishing my own life, as well as our new branch of the Parts and Crafts Collective here in the big city.

My first thoughts? I miss Boston, as I do whenever I’m elsewhere. The Boston area artistic/intellectual/technical community is a really cool and a very particular thing. Whatever my (many) complaints about MIT as an institution, MIT as a community is pretty great, and pretty open, and definitely adds a lot to the area. Leaving just as my friends are starting up Sprout is a particular dissapointment to me, but I’m excited about what they’re doing and excited to have the space to visit when I’m up north.

And New York? There’s a lot going on here. I’ve been actively living in the city for a month and that’s my biggest insight. The culture industries here provide a very strange driving force for the city; one that’s full of little contradictions and mysteries (I was visiting Eyebeam recently, and they were cleaning up to make room for a bridal fashion show that was renting their space in the coming weekend, which, somehow, I can’t quite imagine happening at, say, Axiom, in Boston.)

At the same time, I’ve met a lot of really exciting people in the last month because of the sheer number of interesting projects and institutions and happenings. Due probably in large part to the publishing and art worlds, as well as the city’s long-standing by-your-bootstraps, make-it-here-make-it-anywhere reputation, the intellectual, cultural, creative, and artistic communities seem less dependent than usual on institutions of higher learning (and other large-scale organizations), which I, as a critic of institutional learning practies, find exciting.

And as much as I reject consumption, spectatorship, and celebrity, I can’t help but be excited that I’m living in the same city as They Might Be Giants.

The website is in transition at the moment, going from being the website of a summer camp in Boston to the website of an organization that runs a bunch of different programs and projects in Boston and New York, one of which is a summer camp. I apologize if things seem slightly odd here while we work out exactly what this means.

We have a bunch of exciting things coming up though! Some afterschool classes and weekend workshops in Brooklyn, a building day in Somerville, and winter-vacation day-camp in Boston! Look at our calendar or write us a note for more information about anything that we’re doing!