Experiential School Year Cohorts!
A hub for hands-on creativity, skill-building, and making.
What it is
The Tool School is a place for learning and connection through small group classes. Here, we welcome makers of all ages and experience levels to explore, play, build, and create with materials both familiar and brand new. This is done in a school year arc, meeting every other week.
Grow your confidence and creative capacity, and cultivate the skills you need to tackle your projects with ease; and get plenty of hands-on practice in a caring community.
Access our abundance of amazing tools.
Benefit from our expert and patient guidance.
We know that when you cultivate an understanding of how things work and how to fix them, when you build your ideas into being, when you expand your ability to construct and create things both beautiful and practical (and everything in between) — you will build the tools to make and remake our world.
Join us in our NE Portland Oregon backyard maker space for custom workshops tailored to your family & community, learning labs offered by blue & Caitlin, one-on-one instruction, and open studio time.
NEW Youth Cohorts
Cultivate new ways to connect and problem-solve with each other and our world.
Learning how to make and build are essential skills for an uncertain world. Too often the education we receive doesn’t include hands-on practice with tools or an exploration of how things work and how to fix them.
The Tool School’s new 10-month cohort is dedicated to growning your child's confidence, capacity, and artistry designed especially for youth aged 5-12.
Meets bi-weekly from September to June, starting Monday 9/18 from 3:00 -5:30pm.
Safety First
We have been wanting to gather. Safely. Thoughtfully. Creatively. We’re so excited to welcome you into our outdoor classroom and shop space.
Our newly renovated outdoor structures allow us to maintain over 6ft of distance between each workstation.
Masks will still be required by all participants at this time. ((*Click here if you’d like to know more about our Covid safety-procedures.))
Pricing + Right Relationship
We are all learning together, expanding the possibilities, sharing our resources, and building the future we envision.
We value accessibility, conscious community care, and reciprocity.
Here, that looks like supporting each other.
Offering our workshops on a sliding scale is a tangible way that we are committed to growing community and making skill-building opportunities accessible to everyone. We support our community by making the workshops available to all, without a required cost. You support our community by giving what you’re able, and contributing to liberated ways of sharing your gifts.
How does this work?
Your presence is welcome and desired! Each 2-3 hour workshop will have a suggested value per person and you are invited to pay the amount that feels good to you. However, cost should never be a barrier. Any earnest donation will be accepted.
What If my Child is Too Young to attend?
If you have a kiddo at home that is under the suggested workshop age, email us, and we can arrange care for up to one child per pod for an additional fee.
If you have questions about the calendar or price structure, please contact us.
About Your Guides
Blue brings 33-years of construction and making experience and Caitlin brings 20-years of teaching, and together we bring our shared life-long love of creative expression and evolution through education. As our offerings expand, these workshops will also be taught by our team of experienced crafts people, teachers, artists, and community builders.
Photo by Amy Mcmullen
Photo by Amy Mcmullen
Blue knows tools. While his parents were musicians he took up tools as his instruments. His whole life has been about figuring out how it works and how to fix it. How it’s made, and how to make it himself. He is brimming with knowledge in almost every discipline of making, and is so excited to share his wisdom. Blue is excellent at talking through the design, asking questions about daily needs and aesthetic ideals, and developing a process to fit the project.
If you’d like to work with him on your home projects, you can connect through a Reframe Consultation.
Caitlin knows teaching. Growing up with a school administrator for a mother and self proclaimed lifelong learner for a father, Caitlin grew up in a home of learning. Having decades of experience teaching and facilitating classes and events to people of all ages, she is bursting with enthusiasm, and has a deep understanding of how to make people feel comfortable in a classroom. Caitlin is a dream realizer, and loves to help people achieve their goals.
She values the alchemical exchange that happens when people create, collaborate and learn together.