Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Bijur.
Jonathan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
reDiscover Center was founded in 2004 to provide recycled materials for art and creativity to schools, artists, and families in Los Angeles. A group of parents and teachers came together to share expertise on creatively reusing waste and scrap for education, unlocking kids’ creativity while diverting thousands of pounds of material from the landfill.
We’ve grown to add educational programs for ages 3-12 at our center in Culver City, in schools, and at community events across Los Angeles. Our flagship program is Tinkering School LA, a one week intensive for youth ages 7-12 that provides real tools and real materials to solve real problems. Using hand and power woodworking tools, reclaimed lumber, recycled materials, and a huge amount of imagination, tinkerers build huge robust structures, from 6′ tall mobile puppets to full-scale playground equipment.
reDiscover Center operates a robust educational program, a creative reuse materials warehouse, and a seven day a week kids’ maker space. It works with school systems, libraries, museums, and community organizations to provide educational experiences combining art, tinkering, and sustainability, to over 6,000 students per year. 2017 initiatives include expansion in the South Bay and Pasadena areas.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
reDiscover Center has gone through a few distinct phases. The early years were a time of experimentation, searching for the right community members, partners, programs, and space. The board and staff tried different ideas, at times focusing on materials distribution or on teacher training and support. Early growth really took off with the creation of in-school workshops, providing art classes using recycled materials to grades K-2 in schools across the Westside. Then the 2008 recession hit and schools dialed back their art education funding.
reDiscover again looked for new business areas, while trimming expenses through cost-sharing mechanisms to decrease overhead. It reconfigured its focus from ages 3-7 to a broader age range of 3-12. The then director researched successful programs nationally that fulfilled reDiscover’s triple mission of art, sustainability, and community that could take off in LA. After a number of experiments, she found great success with Tinkering School LA, based on the original Tinkering School in San Francisco. Tinkering School LA started as three weeks of summer camp. It has since expanded to provide after-school programs, classes, adult programs, camps across LA, intensive one-day workshops, and teacher professional development.
Please tell us about reDiscover Center.
reDiscover Center brings together artists, makers, educators, and parents to create a unique learning experience for children. We maintain a tight focus on our educational philosophy that trusts children to be able to teach themselves using real materials. reDiscover’s programs are intensely hands-on. Participants explore familiar and unusual materials, think with their hands, gain skills in manipulating wood, plastic, metal, and composite materials, and apply a modified engineering design process that incorporates artistic expression. Starting in preschool, reDiscover Center program participants gain mastery over the material world. As they age and gain familiarity with particular materials and techniques, students make increasing complex and robust projects, following reDiscover’s prompts and their own open explorations.
I am proud of our amazing staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to give children the chance to make and tinker for themselves. Our community of facilitators is kind, professional, and expert at making and at connecting with children. They are makers themselves, and reDiscover supports their making with materials, tools, and workspace. The rediscovered community of facilitators, children, families, and advocates is an amazingly positive group.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I recall a magical feeling the first time I did fused glass. It was at sleep away camp in the Maine woods and one of the parents had come up from New York City for a few weeks of teaching. He was a master glazer, an artist of stained glass, and while I wasn’t old enough for his regular stained glass class, I was able to take the class on fused glass.
Fused glass starts as compositions of cut colored glass lightly glued together. It is put in a kiln until the glass starts to melt and slump and fuse together. When cooled, all of the sharp edges are leveled out, the colors are just starting to run together, and from a few scraps and shards a beautifully smooth object.
I can remember sitting in the woods at a picnic table dragged up to a small clearing above the dining hall, sitting around the table with five or six campers and this slightly intimidating older man, cutting glass and turning it into something beautiful.
Pricing:
- Tinkering Club (kids makerspace ages 7+) Entrance: $20/first two hours, $10 each additional hour
- Crafting Corner (all ages) $10/project
- Tinkering School LA day camp $500/week
- School Workshops $150 and up
- Art Activity at a Community Festival, Library, Museum, etc. $250 and up
- Birthday Parties and Corporate Retreats $350 and up
- Creative Reuse Materials Warehouse $1/lb or priced as marked
Contact Info:
- Address: 12958 W Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90066 - Website: rediscovercenter.org
- Phone: 310-393-3636
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/rediscoverctr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ReDiscover-Center/94832221306
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/reDiscoverCtr
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/rediscover-center-los-angeles
- Other: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55979910@N00
