Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicholas Maier.
Hi Nicholas, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was a good student in high school in the suburbs but pretty directionless and jaded–I thought everyone was either a hypocrite, boring or just an idiot. I didn’t quite fit in but had good friends and we’d play music and go to punk shows on the weekends. Without anyone giving me any good advice, my default was to go to college and study art. I had grown up poking at my dad’s tools in the garage and taking things apart so I got into sculpture as well as printmaking. I enjoyed the physicality and exploring mixed media.
Right before I finished college I got a job with a design company in Portland that was just starting 3D production on the west coast. It was perfect timing (other than not finishing my degree) because I got in on the ground floor. One of my best friends worked there already and over the next couple years we hired more of our high school friends as the production team grew from two to ten people. My brief training in the college woodshop and metal shop didn’t help me out much because my teachers didn’t care what the hell we did in there. But being around people with more skills (and patience) we all figured out how to be builders together. Having strict deadlines and high standards really stretched me. It was really challenging creative production work that had to ship out fast. Our team (again, mostly my friends) turned out stuff I wouldn’t have thought possible a couple years before–sculptures, interactive environments, huge window displays in LA and New York. We had such little oversight too that it felt like a clubhouse and we’d pull pranks on each other, like shipping someone’s entire desk on a truck to another shop and having airsoft gun battles after work.
I don’t know if I got burned out or just had an itch that wasn’t being scratched but I sadly quit and started teaching green woodworking at an outdoor education program and did some traveling. I guess I got sick of making cool things for huge, rich companies that just used the art to sell shoes and then threw it all away after 2 weeks. The crazy thing is though that my friend who started at that company eventually moved on too and started his own fabrication studio called Matchless Builds. He asked me to join the team and there we were calling the shots and joking around in the woodshop all over again. Fast forward a few years and the company has become incredibly sought after for creative sculpture and displays. We started in borrowed garage space and now have 15 employees and a huge creative warehouse space.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Yeah, well, it happened again that I wasn’t sure if I was actually fulfilling my calling–at least that’s how it felt at the time. It was a job any maker would kill for. We got resumes every week from all over the country. It was definitely hard work but we were really good at what we did. Any suffering to make it work we did it together as a team and conversely celebrated together as a team. I just couldn’t see myself going into the same concrete box every day and only seeing the same 15 people. (For the record, I try to get back to that concrete box as much as I can and hang out with all those amazing people. Really, the best work environment and crew you could ever find.)
The impetus to think about a change was the early death of my dad from ALS. It really made me reflect on what a good life is, given that people I didn’t even know stood up at his memorial and went on and on about what a sincere and loving guy he was and a mentor to young men. The service ended up being 3 hours. My dad was an accountant who couldn’t clap on rhythm to save his life and sent in audition tapes to Survivor for, like, 15 years.
It’s the real existential question we all face: given your circumstances and finite life, what values do you hold and what can you do to get those out in the world? Especially for a nice, middle class, hetero, cis man with a good social safety net and loving Christian suburban upbringing you just owe the world something instead of sitting on and hoarding your good fortune. Not that I plan on making a big difference in the world but I can at least figure out a way to pay it forward and be a better dude to the few people I do meet.
Anyway, that’s it for the existential dread.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Skillcraft Institute?
It took a couple years but I realized I didn’t have to become a social worker or join a huge movement and leave my normal life behind to make a contribution. They say that change happens locally, right? I had legitimate skills I still wanted to use and be physical in a woodshop.
I had been volunteering with an anti-human trafficking organization and had heard statistics about runaways, foster kids and young people living on the streets in Portland. I just couldn’t turn away from that knowledge, you know, like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil sort of thing.
I talked to a lot of people, including Will Kendall at the Artist Mentorship Project (AMP) who does music and art with homeless youth. He told me to go for it, start now, get the kids that you can and do what you do. Just do it. (Am I allowed to say that?)
I started volunteering at an alternative high school in the shop class and, boy, did they need help. I knew I could do better. I did a couple building workshops in borrowed space and then rented some studio space that had tools already and tried out different formats for teaching. After we made a big sculpture of a traditional Dala horse for a winter lights festival with high school students I realized the magic something like that could hold.
I raised some money, started a legit non-profit with a few friends (Skillcraft Institute) and am still figuring out after a couple of years how much work it takes to launch a business like this. This year we had our first official workforce training program with 4 high school seniors focused on job skills and a preview of life in the trades, construction and fabrication. We were able to pay them to learn and are helping them find jobs. Next year’s crew, known as the Future Makers, will be double the size and we’ll have more businesses ready to hire them.
We have also received grants to start a traditional Scandinavian woodworking program for kids ages 6-18 called Slöyd Experience. The idea is to teach life skills–like neatness, resilience, concentration, love of labor, perseverance and self-reliance–that will be transferable to every part of their lives. We’re actually using a manual to teach from Sweden that’s almost 150 years old. They teach “slöjd” in Scandinavia to this day and if you allow my creative translation the word could mean “skilled craft’’.
I have to continue to work on getting my clearance to bring the program into the juvenile detention center but that’s what I have hopes of for this coming year. We’ll also offer free skill shares (like Spoon Club) and classes for adults and families with guest instructors–everything from woodworking to traditional and ancestral crafts. We’re also collecting professionals for open forums to talk about unique Portland industries like sustainable cross-laminated timber, deconstruction, stop motion animation and all the jobs you didn’t know were out there.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Geez, do I have to answer this? No one likes talking about their younger selves, or at least they shouldn’t. I was pretty darn introverted and kind of shy but I really got along with everyone. The Christians, the punks, sports people, band kids, art kids, weirdos and nerds. I honestly just didn’t know what to be and just eschewed the world until I started figuring out my place in it–now that I’m about to turn 40!
I liked reading philosophy, like Camus and Kierkegaard, staying up late at night and playing bass to punk and reggae songs. I tried to dress a little weird and sewed some of my clothes and had a bright red mohawk. I worked for years making balloon bouquets and delivering them all throughout the city. I’m pretty white bread now but all that stuff is still with me. Since I feel like I was so aimless for so long and no one really pushed me to be a better human or get to know myself, I want to become a formal or informal mentor to young men and women kind of like my dad.
Pricing:
- Slöyd Woodworking for kids: $35/session, available at locations around the city
- Adult Classes: $110-$220 (3-6 hours) at IdeaWorks in inner SE Portland
- Skillshares: Free/Donation Based, usually at IdeaWorks and in parks and people’s backyards
Contact Info:
- Website: https://skillcraft.institute
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skillcraft.institute/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576240924217
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Skillcraft.Institute
