Nestled in Somerville’s Cobble Hill neighborhood lies a bastion of community fabrication. Artisan’s Asylum is a nonprofit maker space with a mission to “support and promote the teaching, learning and practicing of design and fabrication.”
To that end, AA offers a robust catalogue of workshops ranging from bike building to robotics, fermenting, metal working, fiber arts, screen printing, you name it.
I went in for a free circuit hacking night (every Wednesday at 7pm), worked on some arduino projects, then wound up getting a lesson from the 3 competitive lock pickers who happened to be hanging out there. It was way easier then I thought it would be. It’s actually amazing everyone doesn’t just go around picking each others locks all the time.
Anywho, a place so massive and replete with creators can be kind of intimidating and hard to know where to begin.
my first impression of artisan’s asylum is that it is a great place to get extremely blinked-at by a person who may or may not work there
— Mat Marquis (@wilto) August 16, 2015
But worry not, you can get yourself oriented and inspired by setting up a free tour of the place, or by dropping in for one of their free workshops. Don your safety goggles and get fabricating.
By James Staub
Photo by Ellen Forsyth
