Prince's Website

This is a link to the portion of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environments website that deals with our program. Especially check out the blog at the bottom of the page which has day by day breakdowns of what we've done with photos and personal write ups on each apprentice.

Starting to get the hang of this art thing

So I started off really bad at drawing. We started by learning life drawing with a nude model. It was really hard at first since we were trying to draw without looking at the paper. I ended up drawing a ton of people with arms that looked like lobster claws. By the end of the week my skills had improved to the point where I was doing pictures with lots of shading and foreshadowing. We then moved on to drawing architecture. Again this was really tough at first trying to get perspective and whatnot. Mine came out all smooshed together and distorted in the wrong areas. But I kept at it and was able to get somethings down that looked like a real architect would have done it. Now its time to master the water colors which is a whole new beast. When I get a chance to post some pictures of my art I will do so.

Oh and today was pay day. First one in a long long time and it feels good to have money again.

The Blog is back

So I've had a lot of unblogworty stuff going on in my life since my last post almost six months ago. Most of that time I was working two jobs I hated. I was working tons of hours doing basic apartment maintenance and washing dishes in the French Quarter and not making much money at all. Hoping for a way out I joined the carpenters union and sat on the out of work list for three months with a total of only 5 hours worth of work.

Also during this time Holly and I moved into a three bedroom apartment very close to the heart of the Tulane campus. The place was a real fixer upper even as a rental, so we caught a good break on the rent. We put countless hours in so far to get things done, but still have far more to do.

News also includes that a few weeks ago I asked Holly to marry me and she said yes. Plans are still very much up in the air, but if you want more information on our wedding then you can check out http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/HollySullivan&BenSanady

And the biggest reason that I decided to resurrect this blog was because I finally got a new job, a good job, and a job I like. I'll be honest it’s really the job of all jobs and I figured that it would be good to blog about it over the next six month. So here it is. It is a carpenter's apprenticeship, and is a partnership among a number of organizations particularly the Prince’s [Charles] Foundation for the Built Environment, the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, Delgado Community College, Louisiana Technical College, and the local carpenter, brick mason, plaster, and iron worker unions. The purpose of the program is to teach old world high skill crafts to apprentices. These skills will be used to help do high quality rebuilding as with emphasis on historic preservation and ecologically sustenance. Essentially we want to build buildings like they were built a hundred years ago, but updated for the 21^st century. Currently we are in the middle of the first phase, which is three weeks of classroom training in which we learn more about this type of building as well as art classes, geometry classes, and studying New Orleans architecture. The second phase of this project is four months of daily work in which we will be working on different parts of five houses spread out around the Treme and Holy Cross neighborhoods. In terms of the carpentry we will be split into two teams, rough carpentry and millwork, but it seems as if I will be doing millwork in which they spent over $50,000 to outfit with tools and equipment. In the final part of the apprenticeship we will travel as a group to England to work in some historic buildings there including possibly Windsor Castle. The program will conclude with a big graduation ceremony in which we will all be handed diplomas by and photographed with Prince Charles himself. Throughout the program all supplies including tools is provided to us and we will be earning a certificate of technical studies from Delgado. The program also is intended to place us in work situations after the program is through so we can continue refining our skills. So like I said it’s a good job.

Stay tuned for more blog posts as I share my experiences as I go through this remarkable program.