Rochester Brainery
A community classroom space in Rochester teaching what really matters in life.
Go here if: you’re a seeker, of knowledge, skills, experiences, and connections.
What is it: A community classroom and event space in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts founded by local Danielle Raymo.
Why you’ll love it: Rochester Brainery is a classroom driven by curiosity. Since it launched in 2013, it has hosted over 2500 classes. Before the pandemic, 70-80 classes were being held each month. Subjects are not limited but roam widely across interests from hand lettering to cocktail making, improvisation to mindfulness. Many of the lessons are co-created with local community partners, makers, artists, authors, and entrepreneurs reflecting everything and anything that someone would want to teach and someone would want to learn.
How to bring this into your life from wherever you are: At the time of writing the Rochester Brainery is open for in-person classes – a Shibori dye workshop, a History Happy Hour, and blacksmithing caught our eye. Outdoor classes have been added with popular geology field trips planned for the spring. If you are based outside the area, the Rochester Brainery is also offering its classes on zoom – a business development class for makers and creatives, and macaroon making looked particularly interesting and fun.
Why we think it matters: Learning sustains us, connecting to new subjects can expand our days, whether that is picking up a new skill or finding a life-long passion. Often as grown-ups, we forget this impulse for discovery; if we follow our curiosity it can be into the rabbit holes of scrolling, rather than meaningful searches in our analog lives. The Rochester Brainery makes it ok to learn again, to connect with subjects that just pique our interest, from history to cooking, and to make space for pursuing something just because we want to. It does so by bringing people together to share new experiences, enabling connections beyond the material and to those with one other. Within this classroom, new friendships have evolved, new business concepts tested (in events and pop-ups), and a community educated in what makes life most important, the people we get to share it with.
In their own words: “Learn from local authors, actors, artists, chefs, graphic designers, distillers, and more who share their smarts in single and multi-session classes.”
Something to try: Push your learning boundaries. We tend to sit within the subjects we feel comfortable with: maybe it's psychology for you, maybe it’s the arts. We may find it hard to wander into a different section of the bookstore, a different theme in podcasts, a different field to our own. Look outside of your world, try on another one. Even if just for a moment. The awe and wonder that can come with being somewhere else, might make it ok to be wherever you are again.
Photo: Rachel Liz Photography
Eureka Hall & School of the Alternative
Illustrator Chelsea Ragan captures how past, present and future creative minds sit comfortably together at Eureka Hall.
Have you ever been to a place and felt like you have been there before? Something deep in your soul knows that the location holds more than wildlife, plants, and man-made structures. Can you sense something in the air? Maybe it’s the spirits of those who have come before, or is it the feeling that all of the stars have lined up for you to be in this moment? Time feels like it stops and you are in this place fulfilling your destiny.
This is the feeling that I experience every time I step foot onto the grand porch of Eureka Hall, formerly “Lee Hall” at YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Years ago, I was traveling with my now-husband Adam Void, passing through the Appalachian Mountains. He noted that we were just a hop and a jump away from the historic Black Mountain College Campus and we should check it out. Entering the town of Black Mountain was something special. Surrounding us were the mountains that had been inhabited by the Eastern Band of Cherokees for generations. The feeling of peace is evident and the desire to be immersed in nature immediately takes over.
Photos: Bronwyn Walls (left) and Rita Kovtun (right)
Once we made our way up the winding rhododendron filled, one-way mountain road, we saw the historic building standing high on the hilltop. This was something we had seen in pictures and dreams, but never before in the flesh. When we walked up those steps and turned around, we were awestruck by the view. The Appalachian mountains “Seven Sisters” are lined up perfectly like they were ready for a photoshoot, standing tall as they have for generations. Yes, the view is extraordinary but something else is there; something unspoken.
One explanation for this feeling of spirits is the incredible history of those who have stood countless times in exactly the same place. The many native Americans that found this oasis and treated it as gold. Fast forward thousands of years to the early 1900s when the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly started operating as a fully functional conference center and meeting place for people all over the globe. It has since housed summer camps, yoga retreats, youth groups, and many other gatherings.
In 1933 Black Mountain College began its legacy on this porch by using these grounds to change the course of art education and to house some of the leading artists of the 20th century. On this very same porch Joseph Albers taught painting classes, faculty met to discuss the future of education, and students danced the night away. These leaders, and soon-to-be leaders, of creative thought, looked over the mountains while passing the hours, soaking up the sublime possibilities.
Even today, the porch of Eureka Hall supports budding creative minds from all across the globe. Every Summer in the month of May, School of the Alternative creates a live-in, passion-driven education experience that functions in the spirit of Black Mountain College. At SotA, anyone can take classes in the same rooms that once held Albers office and the old BMC library. On a hot summer day, you can lay in the grass in front of Eureka Hall and feel the decades fade away. This grand porch still houses late night debates of contemporary literature, plein air painting classes, DIY movie shoots, and general creative shenanigans.
I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones. I live less than five miles away from this creative hub. On days when I feel lost, insignificant, and creativity confused, I find myself drawn to those steps. A couple of months after the birth of my second child I came to sit on these steps wondering if I’ll ever make art again. “Did I lose it? Is my mojo gone?”
Sitting on those steps I reminded myself that destiny can’t be erased or lost. That no matter how treacherous the journey and the amount of times we feel lost we will always find our way to what we’re destined to do. Whatever that is. I felt the comfort of knowing that if my heart is in it, I will always have a guide. This is just one example of how this place, these steps, this view, has changed me.
Photos: Adam Void. Cover image: John Engelbrecht
