Silent Barn has just announced an Aftermath Class series to accompany their Aftermath Supplies art supplies store, yet another example of how prosperous the new DIY music venue and community space is shaping out to be! These classes – which are quite affordable and run every, or every other, Wednesday evening – act as introductions to a whole realm of skills and trades, from bike repairs to drumming!
The interactive and low-key workshops are all taught by local craftswomen and beginners are always welcome! Let’s take for example Screenprinting – a great craft, one of those art activities you always wanted to try out but didn’t find the time, money, or an able facility. Silent Barn has a 4-hour screenprinting workshop series this week for only $15. We don’t think it gets much better than that! We interviewed the founder of the series, Arielle Avenia, to learn more about the classes, the Aftermath art supplies store, the Silent Barn community and…synthetic hair? Read on!
So, you run classes run entirely by women. How are the teachers connected to Silent Barn?
Our teachers are myself and my friend/business partner Devin Lilly, people we know and people from the extended community who have skills that we want to learn or think would just be fun to engage with for a few hours. They might be members and friends of Silent Barn, but they also may not have any association other than that they want to share their knowledge.
Do a lot of them live in the “stewdios” [attached apartments to SB’s venue space]?
Stewdios are various spaces within the barn where groups and individuals can interact with the public, make things privately, and beyond. Upstairs from our venue and studios there are residential apartments, though. There are a few residents/members of Silent Barn who may be teaching a workshop in the future.
Will these classes be running weekly?
Weekly or once every other week.
What is the mission of these affordable, community-oriented workshops?
I think you’re answering your own question! [Arielle laughs.] The main goal is to have time dedicated to sharing skills. Facilitating workshops provides a great opportunity to start forming a community around learning & teaching each other.
Materials are provided from Aftermath supplies, a second-hand materials shop within Silent Barn, with the goal being “to rescue valuable and desirable items that would otherwise be discarded.” What kinds of things have people donated?
Everything under the sun. Paper, paint, brushes, electronics, pastels, charcoal, gesso, mediums, tools, cameras, books, house paint, oil paint, tool boxes, tons of fabric, clothes, zippers, ribbon and trim, light bulbs, printmaking supplies, stamps, a file cabinet, chairs, a boom box, clothing racks, gold leaf, mirrors, plexi, frames, plaster, a 5 lb bag concrete, tubes of caulk, wire…
Anything strange that we might be able to get our hands on?
A huge box of rainbow synthetic hair? 4 pairs of theatrical jousting gloves? At one point we had a pile of ten XL work onesies. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE oddities, but we’re trying to be practical…Art supplies are pretty straight-forward and having too much random weird items would just make us a junk shop.
And there are tons of interesting discards on the streets of Bushwick. Do you ever dumpster dive or trash dig for goods?
A lot of our materials are donated from sources that are reliably bug-free. Though I have found an insanely impressive amount of things in dumpsters, I’m wary of what I take. Ideally, we want people to be aware of us as an organization so we get to the goods before it hits the trash.
What are the hours for the shop?
We don’t really have regular hours right now and kind of show up unannounced to hang out for a few hours, usually between 8PM-1AM, so it’s mostly by appointment. But we’re working on keeping better regular hours (you can email us at [email protected] to see if we have what you need and to make sure the shop will be open when you want to come by).
How is everything in general going at Silent Barn? We heard you just got your liquor license…
Things are going great! We’re really excited to utilize our supplies in order to run workshops and keep meeting inspiring new people to add to our army.
Beyond that, there is new art being created almost every day in all different parts of the Barn. The space has changed so much since we moved in. Not to mention the garden that is being built in our yard right now by the CSAA, and two really super fun events happening on 4/19 and 4/20. Everyone should come by!
Read more about aftermath supplies and what they carry on their website and in this feature.