Knox Makers builds community with creativity
Andrew Gibbs was stuck in a desk job he did not enjoy. It was 2017, and he had recently moved to Knoxville from California. An outdoors enthusiast, he joined Knox Makers to learn woodworking. He envisioned making custom canoe and kayak paddles as a side gig.
“I learned pretty quickly how much work that was,” he says. “So I decided instead to work on some of the little projects I wanted to do around our house.” Using the many and varied tools that his membership in Knox Makers afforded him, he made shelves and hand rails. “I made a sunshade for our deck. Well, I made the deck,” he says with a laugh. “My wife and I are big road trippers, so I made the bed frames for our van.” As he progressed, he also learned how much he enjoyed working with his hands. So Gibbs made a new career. After working at Knox Makers, he quit his desk job, joined a construction crew and went to welding school. Now he’s the crew’s head fabricator. “Knox Makers literally changed my life.”
Not everyone who belongs to Knox Makers undergoes such a dramatic change of direction in their lives. But as a whole they enjoy the camaraderie of a creative community, the 24/7 access to resources and tools, and the joy of seeing a project unfold from their own hands.
Building Over Time
Knox Makers, an all-volunteer nonprofit, has been around for 12 years, says current president Issac Merkle. Originally it occupied space in Oak Ridge and offered a limited selection of tools for its members to use. About eight years ago it moved into the lower level of the South Knoxville headquarters of Spark. As it grew, it acquired more and varied pieces of equipment its members could use to build things. Some pieces were donated. Some were in poor repair, purchased cheap and rehabbed by members. Sometimes members chipped in to purchase something they wanted to use.
Over time, Knox Makers developed nine different areas in which its members could create. There’s a laser cutting zone for engraving on metal, wood or acrylics and a 3D printer. The fiber arts area offers sewing and embroidery machines, including a long-arm quilter and heavy-duty equipment that will stitch leather. The electronics area has a wall full of doodads that people can solder together. There’s an arts and crafts zone for stained glass and painting and other crafty pursuits. The wood shop is the biggest and most popular zone, with a bandsaw and a chop saw and planers and lathes and routers. In the machining and metalworking zones members can weld shelving together and make jewelry and sandblast. There’s also a blacksmithing shop in a small building across the parking lot. (By the way, members built that building, too.)
Each area is overseen by a czar or czarina who makes sure equipment is functioning properly and members are trained to use it correctly. Nobody can operate machines until they’ve been trained and certified in safety protocol. Czars and czarinas also look ahead and suggest other pieces of equipment that members could put to use.
Show and Share
The Knox Makers space and equipment is available to its 370 members 24/7, for which they pay $50 in dues each month. But Tuesday nights are when they gather as a group, welcome potential members to take a tour and learn about the organization, and collaborate during Show and Share, which is also streamed on Facebook and YouTube.
During Show and Share the Tuesday I attended, Cale Caldwell showed a nightstand he built. Until he moved back to Knoxville a year or so ago, Cale had never done woodworking. Now he’s trying to start his own furniture-making business. (Knox Makers is a great place to develop an idea and work on a prototype, Issac Merkle clarifies, but it’s not someplace where members can operate a business. They’d have to do that elsewhere.) After Cale talked about his work, members chimed in with questions about his process and suggestions for improving it.
Sue Joslin, Knox Makers’ treasurer and czarina of the fiber arts zone, showed off a small fabric book she made for storing pin and needles. She practiced a variety of embroidery stitches to decorate it. Joslin has been a member since Knox Makers moved to South Knoxville.
“A friend said I’d like it here, and maybe I could finish all my unfinished projects,” she says. “Now I have even more of them. I’m so inspired by the Shares. The community is wonderful — we teach and we learn.”
Other member stepped up to show off a stained glass project, a plywood lyre and a wooden vanity. Each one discussed how the project went and the challenges that came up, and members responded with their own experiences and ideas.
Benefits of creating together
Once Show and Share ended, Merkle and membership chair Tracy Homer offered information for the potential members who had dropped in for the evening.
Merkle shared the vision statement — to find and grow the maker in all of us — and talked about some of the benefits of membership besides access to the maker spaces. Knox Makers hosts special events like cookouts and a pre-holiday project to repurpose animatronic toys for kids with special needs; occasional maker markets where members can share their projects with the public; classes and workshops to allow members to learn how to use equipment safely and hone their skills.
“Most people who come to us are excited about getting access to some aspect of our workshop,” he says. “It’s fun to show the workshops and see people’s eyes glisten. There’s a special vibe to this group. That need to make an idea real is universal. And if you make something together you can’t help but feel connected.”
Homer discussed some of the details of membership. In addition to each zone’s czars and czarinas, there are peace officers who help resolve any disagreements or misunderstandings that might come up among members. Before becoming a member, someone must spend 30 days as a probationary member to allow people to get acquainted. The manufacture of firearms is strictly prohibited, and members may not run a business out of Knox Makers. Members can claim a bin to store a project or materials they’re working on, and there’s an online chat server where they can share ideas or just socialize.
Homer has been a member for almost 10 years. “A friend brought me to an open night,” she says, “and I was deep into stay-at-home motherhood at the time. It gave me an outlet to explore my own interests for a couple of hours a week and to meet others with similar interests.
“I love that everyone is so curious and creative. Someone could propose
a project and it easily goes off the rails in a very fun way with everyone’s input, and people have the knowledge to do what they suggest, whether it’s making clothes or furniture or smart home software. It fills me with joy to see people bringing beauty into the world. All kinds of making, including repair, is artistic because it’s bringing our two hands to a project.”
Andrew Gibbs can’t sing the praises of Knox Makers loud enough. “This is just an amazing creative outlet,” he says. “Where else can you get access to all these tools and help for just $50 a month?”
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