Category Archives: Skillshare

Somerville Skillshare

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Community, Learnin', Skillshare

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Intro to Salsa at Somerville Skillshare 2014

It’s not everyday that one gets the privilege of attending the first of something. Especially an explosively popular and successful first.

Dancing salsa at skillshare

After six or more years participating in and teaching (on occasion) at the punky, funky, and deliciously grass-roots Boston Skillshare, I pretty much became an acolyte of this unique form of community-based learning. If you’ve met me in person, chances are you’ve heard me proselytize about skillshare’s virtues. Chances are even better that I actually dragged you to one.

I’ll just go ahead and state it: skillshare changed my life.

Don't just make art sign

Sketching out my skills

Putting marker to banner

When I caught wind of Somerville’s inaugural attempt at bringing community-based instruction to the DIY-hungry masses, you know I signed up right away. And by “right away,” I mean if a tornado had touched down at that moment, flinging me and my laptop to the sky, I’d have been no less likely to jab the “register” button.

I sure do love me some:

  • Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something!
  • Investing and Stock Market Principles
  • Intro to Digital DJ’ing

I mean, how can anyone resist:

  • Brew Like a Barista (missed it! too full)
  • Felted Orbs (missed it! too full)
  • Intro to Parkour
  • Link Stitch Bookbinding (missed it! at parkour)

See what I’m saying?

make something folk

thanks to everyone tweet

You’re going to come next year, right?

Skillshare door prize

Door prizes rock

(Also, I kind of “won the skillshare.” Thank you, Skillshare organizers!)

Boston Skillshare 2012 – A Review

24 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Learnin', Skillshare

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I consider the annual Boston Skillshare a quiet revolution. Each year, hundreds of people gather to share, teach, connect, celebrate, and practice the art of learning outside the context of conventional learning practices. The one Boston-area event that I will hard-sell to pretty much anyone willing to listen (all ages, all genders, you’ve got a pulse? Come to the Skillshare!), this year’s bundle of workshops was held in a new location, JP’s Spontaneous Celebrations.

Boston Skillshare - considering the workshops

Although one day of skillsharing really wasn’t enough for me (usually it occurs over a weekend), I appreciated, as always, the homemade vegetarian breakfast and lunch (included in the $3-$10 sliding scale entrance fee) and the opportunity to unabashedly get my learn on.

This year, I enjoyed:
Basic Tree Identification (my partner and I pretend-compete to identify trees, birds, and dogs)
The Science and Art of Making Your Own Household Products (so far I’ve used these recipes to successfully make glass cleaner and deodorant)
Freeing Your Natural Voice (theory about how we vocalize sounds, and exercises)

Next year I hope to get back into teaching -perhaps a reprise of my Crochet 101 and Crochet 102: Granny Squares workshops, or something new. We’ll see!

Ajay compares leaves

A Few of My Favorite Things: Boston’s Best Underground Events

13 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Bike Life, Boston Moments, Learnin', Skillshare

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Part of my intention in creating (and sustaining) this blog is to crow about my favorite Boston-area events.  The four listed below are my long-standing loves.

Boston Skillshare: I learned of the Boston Skillshare as a result of my volunteering with Boston NOW.  My first Skillshare (I’ve been attending for about seven years) was a wonderment -free learning, for real, of the most random assortment –knitting, soda brewing, spoon whittling, home schooling, time management?!  At my second skillshare, I taught a class on letter writing.  Now everyone I meet, practically, I attempt to sway to the way of the Skillshare.  I’ve won lots of folk over, including my own mother.

Boston Pride Parade: I’m not sure how I learned about the Boston Pride Parade, but I’ve rarely missed a year of standing along the route, clapping and shouting and jumping for beads.  In the time that I’ve been attending, the LGBT community worked towards and won the right to marriage equality in Massachusetts.  And it might just be my opinion/experience but I believe, the Parade has since “cleaned up” just the tiniest bit, with fewer men shaking-their-rears on the elaborately decorated beds of semi-trucks to club beats.

Cambridge Citywide Dance Party: I’m only a three-year veteran of the biggest free dance party in Cambridge, where the city closes down one of its busiest streets, pumps up the music, and sets out chairs in front of the Senior Center for folks to enjoy watching the dance mayhem.  Want to see how well your city councillor dances, conga with strangers, or steal some new moves from a four-year-old?  This is your party.

Bike By Bike, At Night: I’ve only made it to two of these all-night rides that are so underground they don’t have a website (just flyers posted around the neighborhoods.) Begun in 1989, this annual tour is organized by the Back Bay Midnight Pedalers and features stopping points at historic and architectural sites of note in Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge. I haven’t yet made it to sunrise due to the lack of bathroom breaks combined with no published route, but once I figure those two issues out, I just might!

Gift Circle

03 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Green Life, Skillshare, With Friends

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We sit on the grass in the yard, our feet together, dinner a recent memory and frozen desert churning in the house. Trees above contemplate what to wear for fall and the mosquitoes dance down from short heights, not at all confused in their purpose. Over in the next yard, a man mows his lawn and sings. We smile at him and at one another. We listen.

This is the story of a gift circle taking place behind a house on a hill in Jamaica Plain. As one experienced in community building, in time banking, with some years of co-counseling and some hours of non-violent communication, as a true believer in invaluable intangibles, I’m not a stranger to the concept that all individuals have something valuable to contribute to their community. Yet, I remained receptive to surprise, excited to embark on a new path to connecting to the people in my community, friends and strangers and loves.

What are your needs? What are your gifts? What is your intention?

Following the format of the exercise, each person in turn answered whatever was true and pressing (and comfortable to share) to her or him, however concrete or abstract. Sometimes we called out agreement, sometimes we laughed or snapped our fingers to indicate that a need described was one we could happily fill. When the night grew late, we collected ourselves, each gifted with a new opportunity to give or receive.

Then we ate ice cream.

My needs shared that evening:

  • A clever way to wash a multitude of sweaters (my partner’s and mine) by hand
  • Help turning out the compost bin I share with my neighbor

Needs I hadn’t yet put to words:

  • Film camera lessons
  • New bike
  • Creative budgeting advice
  • Cat and plant sitting

My gifts:

  • Editing with a careful ear to the writer’s voice
  • Listening
  • Being fearless and yet polite
  • Being a companion for activities, even the potentially mundane
  • Organizing and planning

(Photo courtesy Ashley Clements 2011)