In one of the more Spring-ish days in March, I had the pleasure of visiting the Navy Yard Industrial Park in Brooklyn for a jewelry making workshop via Sidetour. Located on Brooklyn's waterfront surrounded by DUMBO, Fort Greene and Williamsburg, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is a modern industrial park with over 4 million square feet of space. Most tenants are artisans, handmade product companies, and creative studios, advocating the "Made in Brooklyn", and "Made in NY" brands.
Because of the size of the property, it took quite a lot of walking to get to our building. Most of the buildings at the park seemed abandoned from the outside along with empty lots, old railroad tracks, and wide industrial spaces. Maybe it seemed empty because it was the weekend, but these seemingly empty buildings actually house studios and lofts with manufacturing assemblies. We went into the building pictured above, where we learned how to handcraft jewelry.
Jewelry Making Workshop at Sidetour.
As it turns out, handcrafting bracelets is not easy. It involves multiple stages of meticulous inspection: we sawed, sanded, hammered, torched, and heated metal to achieve a product closely resembling the bracelet design we picked from the beginning. The more detail-oriented we were, the nicer our bracelets looked. When I finished my design, I came out more appreciative of handcraft jewelry making and understood why these things don't come cheap.
As soon as the class ended, I went outside and took pictures. I just couldn't ignore the dramatic look of these endless red brick walls and old architecture. Everything seemed haunting, and I hope it translated into my pictures.
