Three years ago, it felt as if everybody had a side hustle. Yoga lovers turned teachers, accountants had a ceramics store on Etsy, graphic designers made wedding cakes on the weekend. As author Jia Tolentino put it, the goal of any hobby or skill was to “always be optimising” and use it for your financial and social gain.
But since then, with countless lockdowns included, people’s propensity to work constantly and do only what brings money instead of happiness has diminished and brought with it a boom for short course providers across the country, who are now seeing record enrolments of people wanting to learn a new skill for the challenge and joy of it.
Bladesmith Aiden MacKinnon teaches knife-making classes at Melbourne’s Cut Throat Knives.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
“I think it’s easy to understate how powerful the feeling of making something is,” says Aidan Mackinnon, a bladesmith who teaches knife-making classes at Melbourne’s Cut Throat Knives. He explains that where once time was our greatest commodity, its abundance in recent years has allowed people to reflect on how they want to spend it and what they want to do with it.
“Humans are, by nature, makers. But any hobby or craft takes time to master and that isn’t really compatible with the world of immediate gratification that we live in, particularly before COVID hit. But we’ve been making things for as long as we’ve been around; it’s literally built into our evolution to enjoy these tasks.”
Having moved to bigger premises in 2021 to accommodate growing interest, Mackinnon says Cut Throat has seen astronomical growth in interest for their classes, with sessions as far as four months in advance selling out within minutes of becoming available.
Students learning pottery at Clay Sydney where classes continue to grow in popularity.Credit:Edwina Pickles
Bea Bellingham, a ceramicist who teaches short courses at Clay Sydney says a lot of the growing interest their studio has seen also comes down to a mass reassessment of what matters.
“Before COVID there was a lot of emphasis on your identity as your career and there wasn’t an awful lot of self-care. Now people are starting to realise that part of self-care and having a full identity is about having hobbies and skills outside of work or Netflix or going out to eat and drink with your friends.”
Unable to teach in-person during Sydney’s 2021 lockdown, Clay Sydney moved to virtual classes and were shipping up to 600 at-home kits a week to eager students wanting to learn the basics and get their hands dirty.
“So much of the last few years has been spent virtually, and being able to be physical is something I think a lot of people forgot the power of,” Bellingham says, adding that many of the students who first enrolled in the virtual classes have since gone on to attend the advanced courses offered across their two Sydney studios.
Mackinnon says that making things is part of human nature. “It’s literally built into our evolution to enjoy these tasks.”Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui
Both Bellingham and Mackinnon say the booming popularity of maker videos on social media is helping demystify the creative process and giving viewers a step-by-step understanding of how things are made.
Another factor driving enrolment is the rise of reality television shows centred around making like Netflix’s Blown Away and Nine’s Lego Masters.
“We’re used to seeing the finished product, but learning about all the steps that it takes to get there is really insightful for people,” Bellingham says.
Mackinnon agrees. “It’s really democratised learning new skills and especially the skill that goes into making things. With knives, for example, you can go to the supermarket and buy one for almost nothing. But when you spend a weekend learning that there’s actually a lot that goes into making this tool that you take for granted and that it’s an art form that takes time and you have to push through those challenges that comes with making something from scratch with your own hands, I think there’s a joy and reward in that and it becomes a humbling experience.”
The booming popularity of maker videos on social media is partly responsible for the growing popularity of short courses for leisure.Credit:Edwina Pickles
For Bellingham, another great aspect of the recent short course boom has been seeing people’s confidence grow and the feeling that comes from reconnecting with outlets that have often been unexplored for decades.
“Previously, we’d see a lot of people who already had creative jobs and were looking for an additional outlet that would potentially become a side business, whereas now we’re seeing a lot of people who don’t necessarily have creative jobs and are looking for that tangibility and who say they haven’t done anything artistic since high school.”
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