By Mike Easterling measterling@sfnewmexican.com – Jan 20, 2025
A Santa Fe enterprise that for nearly 10 years has helped local creators perfect and utilize their skills in various hands-on pursuits has launched a series of classes in which participants can be introduced to several of those disciplines.
Make Santa Fe, a community makerspace located at 2879 All Trades Road, is a 7,000-square-foot facility outfitted with cutting-edge equipment in such areas as metalworking, woodworking, ceramics, digital fabrication, welding, plasma cutting, laser cutting and 3D printing. Another 2,000 square feet of outdoor space is home to a blacksmithing shop and other equipment.
The business has been around for nine years, Executive Director James Johnson said, and has offered classes in many of those fields in that time. But this is the first time Make Santa Fe is combining several of those overlapping pursuits into cohesive, skills-building programs.
One example is the ancient industrial tech class, Johnson said, which will feature classes in blacksmithing, ceramics and bronze working.
“If you are a maker who wants to really dive into a discipline, this will help you round out your skill set,” he said.
The so-called track courses will cover approximately 15 disciplines, Johnson said.
“The curriculum isn’t new to us, but the way members are engaging with our curriculum is,” he said.
The track courses will unfold across multiple sessions, and the schedule for the classes can be tailored to meet the needs of participants.
While the track classes were introduced only last week, Johnson said response has been good so far, with four new students having enrolled by Jan. 17.
Each session is limited to four students, and tuition for each session typically runs $80 to $100, he said. That means by the time a student finishes a full track class, the investment will be approximately $500, according to Johnson.
Some students finish the entire run of courses within two weeks, while others will stretch out their experience across a couple of months, he said.
All materials for the classes are supplied by Make Santa Fe.
Johnson said he hopes that even folks who already have taken a class will enroll in one of the track courses.
“The idea is to open their minds to overlapping disciplines and inspire people to break outside their comfort zones,” he said.
Johnson estimated 15% to 20% of folks who take a Make Santa Fe course become a member of the makerspace, which entitles them to regular use of the facilities and equipment. The facility is open from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, but members who pay an extra fee are entitled to 24-hour access.
Nearly 40 local fabricators and artists serve as the instructors for the courses, he said, with those folks ranging from highly skilled hobbyists to longtime industry professionals.
“Almost all of them were members here first,” Johnson said.
Santa Fe is full of the kind of folks who can make good use of the facilities, equipment and training Make Santa Fe offers, he said.
“The makerspace is the place where you can learn these crafts and pursue them,” he said. “It sort of makes this the perfect place. There’s a component of people here want to working more with their hands.”
To learn more about the track courses, visit makesantafe.org/tracks/.