The Levi’s Workshop: Delighted guest decides to rename it Dreamshop

Our casual discussions grew into “meetings,” and the notes on paper napkins became plans, which became bullet-pointed lists, which became blueprints and budgets and permits and finally contracts. And we all knew it looked fantastic on paper, but I suppose secretly we were self-conscious about any of a number of possibilities. What if the press breaks? What if the paper never comes? What if nobody wants to make prints? What if … ?

As with anything big and new — and particularly with things that have never been done before — we found ourselves working furiously down to the wire. I’m certain that the hand-soap dispensers were being topped off as the first guests came through the door. And suddenly, there it was. The Levi’s Print Workshop.

I’ve always thought of the Workshop as a sort of party, an unknown monster knocking at the door. The intent is to have fun, to enjoy and savor every moment, and in a short while, it will end. We opened our doors to a flood of passion, warmth and energy that absolutely did not let up until the very end. Our party monster was the perfect mix of “Big Scary” and “Soft Cuddly.” And though he made a bit of a mess, it was the kind of mess a workshop is made for.

When we first opened, I think a Google search of Levi’s Workshops revealed maybe a few hundred results. Today the same search yields nearly 4 million results. It was talked about in all the magazines, and though people had heard of it, the concept was just so strange to people, they simply couldn’t wrap their minds around it.

At first, the project provoked some mistrust in the neighborhood: “Why would a corporation want to do anything like this?” And so our mission became less to explain how to make prints, and more to explain why we were there. And this took a week or two. The explanation bit never really ended. Up to the night of the closing party, I was still fielding questions around “Do you guys make the jeans here?” and “What is this place?!”

As people began to understand, they let their guards down. They picked up the rubber stamps, and they pressed them to the ink pads, and then to the paper, and then to the ink pads, and then to the paper again, and they began to smile. They took their turns pulling the lever on the Platen press, or turning the crank on the SP25.

Each person, upon seeing the result of their work, cracked The Smile — the smile of someone who’s just witnessed something amazing, who’s just made something themselves. A computer didn’t do it. They didn’t run into the copy center and pick up a bunch of prints that were made for them. They were the printers. And even if the print said something as simple as WORK or PRINT, it was enough to make them proud for a moment, and eager to show their friends, and quickly their friends wanted to show their friends, and those friends wanted to show their friends, and before you knew it, we were hosting 300, 400 people on a Saturday afternoon … and Sundays became more impressive than an Apple Store on launch day.

When people would ask, “What happens here on Sundays?” I’d ask, “Well, have you ever been to an Apple Store?” They’d say, “Yes,” and I’d ask, “Have you ever been on a day when they released something new, like the iPhone?” Someone would say, “Yes!” And I’d say, “It’s like that, except that here, the ‘phones’ are free.”

The idea that paper, ink, instruction, camaraderie, music, drinks, emulsion, pencils, whatever you need is FREE made it seem like they (and we) were living in a dream. One woman told me it wasn’t a “workshop” at all. “It’s a dreamshop,” she said.

Toward the end of our first month, the collaborators were getting braver and braver with their projects. We were going through ink faster than hand soap, and quickly the walls were filling with the collective work of a community come to life. We were running low on thumbtacks with which to hang everyone’s work. No matter, there is tape! Things were being taped, leaned, spray mounted, adhered any way possible to the walls. People were making zines and photocopying their faces, and suddenly the workshop wasn’t just a workshop, it was a community hangout, a place to come and share with your friends, take pictures and become a part of it for REAL. This wasn’t just some flashy boutique shop that you visit once to say you’ve been there; this was a place you came to to set up shop and MAKE and CREATE and SHARE, and it was catching on like fire.

The project was a lesson in serendipity. On the last day there we were, tacking print after print after print to that giant gallery wall and stepping back in awe at the volume of work created in just eight little weeks. Suddenly the work was reaching to the floor, and it was climbing past the track lights. Print after print after print, and each one like a photograph, instantly triggering a memory, a person, a time of day, the smell of the solvents and Murphy’s oil soap and inks, the inks on the prints corresponding to stains on our aprons, smudges of ink on our faces, all remembered as we pinned more and more prints to the wall.  And finally it was time to open our doors to the public for one last party, and it was the most beautiful monster of all, everyone remembering just how beautiful eight little weeks can be, especially when together we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Dan Connor is the studio manager for the Levi’s Workshops project. In September, he and his collaborative band will wend their way to New York City to set up the second Levi’s Workshop.

This article came about when Alyson Kuhn asked Dan Connor, just before the closing party got underway, to send her a couple of thoughts about the Workshop experience. He responded with 2000 beautifully crafted words, half of which you have just read. His endearing last question to me was, “Something like that? Or should it be more of an ‘Umm, I think it was really cool. And they have great burritos on the block’ kind of thing?” You can read Felt & Wire’s previous posts on the Levi’s Workshops here and here. You can revel in the Levi’s Workshops blog right here.