a few weeks ago i started an idea with an application for a summer apprenticeship called the UNSCHOOL. at the time i wasn’t sure on the details but i had passion for the direction. my past experience teaching as an adjunct that lead to the 529 collective – was a source of inspiration for this idea.
================================
i see a gap that widens everyday in this country between the learned and known of life. As our economies and workplaces shift — the trusted models of college institutions lag behind to be able to produce a product that meets the demand of the marketplace. at the same time as technologies and our industries move forward on this unstable ground we now find ourselves calling a work environment : the time needed to nurture and mentor young talent is lost in squeezed and stretched with “less is more” mentalities and smaller profit margins — that we have all strapped on to make it through this “non-depression” of a time period in our country.
i am the one out of ten that stand in an unemployment line every monday online to claim insurance that i have worked to pay into. this has given me the time to realize i have a short window to follow a passion of teaching and farming that was passed down to me from my two loving parents.
================================
i found one apprentice for the summer — nate puza hand delivered a skateboard deck with his application answers. my wife immediately replied to my picture text – did you do this? we knew we had our guy. the UNSCHOOL officially started last week — first assignment was to de-clutter and find organization in the attic of George Fulton’s Studio – in his prop closet. A project that was well over a decade in the making.
Most people would look at this as grunt or busy work. To me I handed Nate a sketchbook and a pen before leaving him in the room for 15 minutes. I explained he would need the time to evaluate the situation and when I returned i wanted to hear a plan/design of where and how we would begin this project.
20 minutes later I returned. Nate suggested that we needed categories to work towards to organize and arrange the room and shelves. I had the same idea in my head. So we started to work together on clearing out empty boxes first. We then talked about the gems we found in boxes – army men, globes, wheat pennies, cool old things with knobs, a box of flashlights, and our favorite — two ping pong paddles & net set (bonus).
To me this is the exact thing we as designers and creatives do everyday. A client – usually with a decade plus of props from the past – walks into our office and invites us into their lives to help designate what is worthy of a story to tell and what are just empty boxes that need to be moved or thrown away. For a company – the props are people in an office or better the people in a community they have built — usually called customers. We have to take the time to organize and categorize each group and their relevance to our client’s story or brand.
by the end of the week nate and I uncovered several key things that you see in the picture above: a chalkboard hidden behind the door. a box of chalk and erasers that were on a random shelf in the corner. two desk and chair hidden under boxes. i guess what we discovered in that prop closet was a classroom, maybe our UNCLASSROOM — a great first lesson for both nate and I to begin with.
