Ask LaBricoleuse/Meta: Things I Totally Want to Know More About

[labricoleuse]

I said yesterday that the main subject i wanted to address next was apprenticeships versus sole-artisanships, so here we go with that. This is another part of my ongoing series of posts in which i attempt to answer the Hard Questions: What do i wish my professors had told me when i got out of school? What advice would i go back and give myself, if

Comments

[puppetmaker40]

I have to agree wholeheartedly with this entire post.

Working with a skilled artisan is worth all the time you put into it. I was lucky enough in college to be put to work with an Italian leather mask maker who was making the masks for a production of Hecuba we were doing. I learned so much more from that than any book I have seen on the subject.

I have also had the great luck of working under some incredible puppet builders who taught me many of the tricks of the trade that I now teach other people.

[trystbat]

Interesting, bec. I can totally see an analogy to not jumping too high too early in any field. There's a real value to working your way up via mentoring & stepping thru hoops. Early in my career, I took a managerial job bec. my manager was moving on, & while I achieved a lot for the company, I also learned that I really preferred 'doing the work' instead of supervising those who do the work. I wish more fields had recognized apprentice/mentor relationships, bec. where you can find it, that's hugely helpful.

[editrene]

I completely agree with you and found your post so interesting. I'm mid-career change, currently studying for a degree in Bespoke Tailoring (partly b/c I'm too old for a traditional apprenticeship - they do still have them on Savile Row, but only for the youngsters), and at the moment I'm on an extended (paid, luckily) internship for a very high profile opera company where I have learned, very very quickly, just how little I know! I think that's one of the things that draws me to costuming/tailoring anyway - the fact that you never, never stop learning - but I'm lucky enough to be working at the moment with a head cutter who's come out of retirement for a year or two partly as a favour to the company, and partly because she wants to share her knowledge, which is just fantastic. When it comes to historical tailoring, it's the cutting knowledge that is so hard to come by - over here (I'm in the UK) good men's cutters are unbelievably rare and companies are having real trouble finding them, so even though menswear isn't ultimately where