#i should commission art of how mel actually looked one of these days

[exhumedicarus]

rip to the random viera who had the misfortune of dying in the seventh umbral calamity and immediately having their body hijacked and appearance altered by a barely conscious melpomene

[pennywaltzy]

Alternate Beginnings, Alternate Endings, Alternate Universes (3/5 - An “Adventures In Unexpected Places” Story)

we’re winding down on kid!Amy and kid!Rory for a bit, but they’ll come back in flashbacks in other fics, I swear! But here’s another old chapter of @fadeddreaming‘s crossover story…

Alternate Beginnings, Alternate Endings, Alternate Universes - After being sent to the worst school in the whole of England, Amy meets up with the man whose fault it is that she’s there, and things go vastly more differently than anyone expected.

READ CHAPTER 1 | READ CHAPTER 3 | SERIES PAGE | HELP ME SURVIVE? | COMMISSION ME? | BUY ME A KOFI?

Valentine’s Day went well. The girls at school had had a blow-out party while Amy and Rory went to New York City to sightsee with the Doctor. It wasn’t as though he was really chaperoning them, but was there with his sonic if they needed it. They went to a museum of art and then a concert of Amy’s favorite band. Rory didn’t set foot on the school grounds at all, and the next day she acted as though everything was normal and not that she’d had the best first date ever.

But her life went back to normal. Mels had found the person the Doctor suggested, and they were hatching up all sorts of schemes, and Amy watched on with amusement. It was clear that Mels really was a criminal mastermind, and while it was nice to see her excel Amy also hoped she knew when to get out before it was too late.

Winter ended and spring arrived, and soon it was time for Easter break. Rory’s parents had accepted that their son was in a long distance relationship with Amelia and invited her to stay with them, and Mels had gotten her parents to offer the same, but Aunt Sharon had finally decided that maybe she should see how her niece was, so she was going home for the break.

Home…it seemed strange to her, but now St. Trinian’s was home, and the only thing Leadworth had to offer was Rory. It would be very strange to be back for two weeks, but the Doctor had promised he would try and visit, make things a bit lively, and she knew she could trust him to do just that. As she set her duffel bag on the floor of her old room she looked around. Aunt Sharon had come in to dust, but everything had been left more or less as she had left it. It saddened her a bit, to think that her aunt missed her so little that she hadn’t spent time among her old things.

Their first dinner together was awkward. There was so much going on that Amy simply couldn’t tell her about, like the trips with the Doctor or Mels zany schemes or the times she actually got to see her boyfriend out of the blue. So she stuck to the simple stuff, and Aunt Sharon tried to fill in the gaps with what had been going on since she had left. It was with relief that Amy went outside to the old swing set that was still standing back there, and sat down on the swing.

It was times like today she wondered what had happened to her parents. She had bare memories of them, but nothing concrete. She remembered her mum was thin, and her dad was on the fat side. She remembered hazy smiles, but that was it. There were no pictures of them around the house, and when asked her Aunt Sharon always changed the subject, as if she didn’t want to talk about them, and didn’t want her talking about them, either. Would her parents have sent her to St. Trinian’s? Would they have just believed her about what she knew now was the truth, that he was real and that she could travel through time and space when she was with them? Or would it be exactly the same as it was now?

The familiar vworp-vworp-vworp of the TARDIS materializing got her attention, shaking off the melancholy thoughts. Sometimes, she swore, she just had to think and her Doctor would make himself known. The doors swung open and she jumped off the seat and ran in, throwing her arms around the surprised man’s chest. “It’s only been three weeks, Pond,” he replied, still giving her a hug.

“It’s like you just know when I need you,” she said, letting go.

“But haven’t you figured out yet that I do?” he said, grinning at her. She grinned back, and he clapped his hands together. “So! What do you want to do today?”

“I want to see my mum and dad,” she replied.

He frowned. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Amelia.”

“Why not? We can go in the past, right?” She walked over to the console. “Shouldn’t be hard.”

“Amelia,” he said quietly. “I have looked. God knows, I have looked. And I simply can’t find them. They’ve never existed.”

“Then how am I here?” she asked, confused.

“I don’t know, but I have a theory.” He looked at her, then moved her towards the chair near the console. She sat down and looked up at him. “The crack in your wall…I’ve seen others like it, all over the universe. I watched someone touch it, then disappear in a bright light, and then no one remembered him. There was no record of him. I think, perhaps, that your parents…the same thing may have happened to them.”

The crack. It still gave her nightmares, even now that it was sealed. And to think that it swallowed up her parents… “I don’t understand,” she said.

“I don’t either, not entirely, but I’m doing everything I can to figure it out. I promise, if I can bring your parents back I will.” He knelt down in front of her and grasped her hands in his, squeezing. She looked him full on in the face, knowing he was being earnest and truthful. But…she liked her life as it was now. How drastically would it all change if her parents were back? Would she still have Mels as a friend? Rory as a boyfriend? Would she still go to St. Trinian’s? Most of all, would she still have met the Doctor and had the wonderful, brilliant maddening adventures she’d had with them.

“I don’t want things to change,” she said, shaking her head.

“But if it would fix things, it’s what I should do,” he said.

She pulled her hands away and stood up. “No. I like this life. I have a home, I have friends, I feel like I belong somewhere. If you bring them back, what happens then? Do I lose all this? Does it never take place, and I’m different? I don’t want to be different.”

“But maybe it will be better,” he replied.

“And maybe it won’t!” she said. She could feel tears slipping down her cheeks. He didn’t care if it hurt her, he was going to do it anyway. He was her friend, and he was going to hurt her. “Maybe everything will be horrible! Maybe Mels will never come to Leaadworth and Rory won’t like me and I’ll never meet you and I’ll be boring and ordinary and I won’t…I won’t…” She couldn’t get anymore out.

He came up to her and wrapped his arms around her. She pounded at his chest slightly, but he didn’t let go. “I can’t imagine to know how you feel, Amelia,” he said quietly. “But if this is a mistake, if this is something I can fix, then I must fix it.”

She stopped fighting and instead cried, her face buried in his shirt until there were no more tears left. She pulled away, wiping her still moist eyes with the back of her hand. She looked at him closely, and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to do this. She had no say in it. She turned around so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Please don’t come back for me.”

“Amelia…” he said quietly.

“If it all changes, don’t come into my life, okay? Just leave me be.” She started walking to the door. Her life was going to change. Someday, she was going to wake up and it would be different. And she had the gut feeling only she would remember. And she would be looked at as the weird little girl in Leadworth who talked of things no one else could understand all over again.

“I’ve seen your future. Your correct future,” he called out as she had her hand on the handle. “Do you want to know what happens? I hadn’t planned on telling you. I perhaps would have, later, when you were older.”

She lowered her hand and turned around. “Tell me.”

“I show up again when you’re nineteen, not twelve. We save the world from Prisoner Zero, and then I disappear again for two years. I come back the night before you marry Rory, and you run away with me. Then you try and kiss me, and it’s a mess, so I go pick up Rory, and…he dies. But he comes back, and then you die, and then we seal you up and wait nearly two thousand years for you to wake up. But the universe stopped existing, and an exploding TARDIS is the only thing warming the Earth. But then I fix things, and disappear, but you bring me back. But you also bring back your parents, and you seem happy when I drop in on your and Rory’s wedding.”

She stumbles a bit at the weight of the information. That’s what’s supposed to happen to her? That’s her life? A life of waiting, to be replaced with a life with her parents? “And what happens to this life?” she asked.

“It’s like the others. You remember it in your head. Rory will probably remember it, too, with enough prompting,” he said as he walked towards her. “But the life with your parents…you seem better in that life. More fulfilled. Happier.”

“But I wouldn’t see you again until I was twenty-one,” she said. “And Rory is going to die? And I’m going to die?”

“But you come back,” he said. “Of course, that life may never happen. After all, it’s nine more years until my enemies set the trap. And I know about it now.”

“How did you find out about it?” she aasked.

“My friend River, I’ve mentioned her before?” She nodded. “She’s a time traveler, going in the wrong order. The first time I meet her is the last time she sees me. She got a hold of me not long after I met you in Camilla’s office. She has a book where she records her adventures, and said suddenly she was remembering different events then were in her book. We had a long talk and that’s when I got the gist of everything that changed.”

“I had no idea,” she said quietly.

“And I didn’t want to tell you until you were older, until I learned more. No one should know more of their own future than absolutely necessary, especially in your case where it’s so drastic of a change. Even my records have you with a different future then the one I just told you. About the only thing that remains the same is that you have Rory to help guide you through things.”

“Should you tell him?” she asked.

“Yes, perhaps I should,” he replied. “It wouldn’t be good for you to have to keep such a heavy burden to yourself, and he would understand.”

“What about Mels?”

He paused. “The less she knows, the better,” he said after a moment. “Her future is…complicated. And the less you know of it, the better. I already made a hash of things, and it may turn out differently in the long run anyway.”

“I don’t like keeping secrets.”

“Let’s just say she’s got one of her own and leave it at that, shall we?” He put a hand on each shoulder and looked at her intently. “Should we go find Rory?”

“Yeah, probably,” she said with a sigh, looking down.

“Amelia.” She looked back up. “Before I go fix this problem, if I can fix it at all, I will tell you. I will have you be as prepared as I can for the changes that are going to come, whatever they might be. I will not leave you to face it all alone.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go get Rory.”

“All right then. Off to go fetch Rory.” He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the console. A small but heavy weight was lifted from her shoulders. At least she would have warning. At least she could prepare herself. Or at least try. But she knew at the core of her being that things would never be the same again.

[phillymakerfaire]

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    Break Through is a podcast series about making. Making discoveries, making a difference in the community and making the world a better place. It’s the stories of startups and inventors who are developing products that have social value by solving real world problems. It’s about artisans and entrepreneurs who have broken through the mold to live their best lives.

  

Welcome to episode number five of Break Through, a NextFab-made podcast series. This time our guest is Mel Sage of Sage Woodworks, a Philadelphia-based artist whose custom-fabricated designs use nature and typography to produce stunning and unique pieces. Throughout the conversation, you’ll learn about Mel’s journey from architect to entrepreneur, how she found a sense of community at NextFab, and advice for those who aspire to make a living from making.

Ron Bauman: Good morning, Melanie. How are you today?

Mel Sage: Morning. I’m good. How are you?

Ron Bauman: I’m good. Bright and early on a Monday morning.

Mel Sage: Yep.

Ron Bauman: Thanks for joining us here at NextFab, South Philadelphia. So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Mel Sage: Okay. I’m Mel Sage. I am from the area originally, and I have a background in architecture. I have my bachelor in architecture. I went to school down South in Clemson, South Carolina, and I graduated in 2016. And I immediately moved to New York City, where I did a couple odd jobs and then I ended up at an architecture firm there. I worked at, it was like high-end residential firm. And I worked there for about a year and a half, and I worked on a five-story building in DC for most of the time that I was there. And I was always sort of interested in fabrication ever since college. So even when I was at the firm, I was interested in building the site models there, and I didn’t always get to do that. So when I did, it was a really exciting time for me.

Mel Sage: I don’t know if you’re familiar with site models and architecture, but that stacking of the topography was always really beautiful to me. That’s where I got the idea for what I do now, which is wooden wall hangings. I take topography maps, and I underlay them in AutoCAD, and trace the topographies of different places. And then I cut out the wood on the laser cutter and stack them in more of an artistic way. I take a little bit of artistic liberty there.

Mel Sage: But yeah, so I decided that I wanted to leave New York when I realized that I wanted to pursue this, but it was so expensive in New York. I was looking at wood shops there, and they were like $800 a month just to be a member. So, I figured maybe I would come back to my roots, come back to the Philadelphia area where I know it’s a little more affordable, and I found NextFab just through online searches. And their membership is, I think, a great deal.

Mel Sage: My lease was about to end, so I was like, “I’m just going to up and move to Philly.”

Ron Bauman: Nice.

Mel Sage: So, I moved here and immediately started working at NextFab, and it’s been great. I’ve met a lot of people that are also in the same boat as me. It’s been fun to get to know people here.

Ron Bauman: Yeah. That’s awesome. Was there a tipping point up in New York that you said “That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m done with architecture. I want to pursue this dream that I have.”?

Mel Sage: Yeah, I guess the tipping point was when I found myself sneaking away from my desk to hop on the laser cutter at work, and I was designing things like in CAD in my spare time, and hoping that my boss didn’t see. That was probably my tipping point. Also, I took a woodworking class when I was in Brooklyn, and it was a six-week course, and that was really fun. And I just found it super therapeutic. All of that came together, and then again, with my lease ending, I needed to make a quick decision on it. So, I put in my two weeks.

Ron Bauman: Cool. Was woodworking something that you were always interested in? Or was this something that developed in your time as an architect?

Mel Sage: I would say it developed pretty slowly. When I was in school, in college, I would always use the wood shop whenever I could. I’m not a classically-trained woodworker. I’ve trained myself on most of the machines that I use. But yeah, I would work in the wood shop at school and I would use the CNC router at school whenever I could, and the laser cutter. I was really interested in digital fabrication. I would say more so than woodworking, but I always was really interested in wood as a material. I would make a lot of my models in school out of wood when I could. I was just drawn to wood.

Ron Bauman: Nice. What do you find passionate? What inspires your creativity?

Mel Sage: I would have to take it way back. My mom-mom is who taught me just how to incorporate art into my life. Not that I draw inspiration from that everyday obviously, but I do a lot of painting with what I do now, even though I’m not necessarily drawing figures or anything. But whenever I pick up a paint brush, I think of her. I hang out with her sometimes. She doesn’t really paint anymore, but we still talk about art.

Ron Bauman: Awesome. You find inspiration through through mom-mom, any other sources of inspiration?

Mel Sage: Yeah. I still have that architectural, I don’t know what I would call it. There’s something in me that’s still drawn to architecture, so I still follow some big name architects. So I would say like Bjarke Ingels is a big one. Zaha Hadid, who obviously was a female in the industry. I follow their work just on social media and stuff, and just keep up with what they’re producing. Not that their work necessarily relates to what I do now, but I definitely draw inspiration from their textures and their structures that they come up with.

Next, Mel tells us about her new career path, the community here at NextFab and her transition into teaching.

Mel Sage: When I came to NextFab, there was definitely a big jump from working for the man per se, to just doing my own thing. And it’s just made me so much happier in my day to day life. Being able to set my own schedule is amazing.

Ron Bauman: Be your own boss.

Mel Sage: Exactly. And being able to just come here and work straight through the day. I don’t think about how much time I’m putting into my work day because I’m just passionate about what I’m doing. Because at the architecture firm, there were times when I would be there until 2:00 AM on a Saturday, crazy hours. But here, I don’t think about it. I’ll come in on the weekend and I’m having fun, and it’s therapeutic. And like I said, I’ve met a lot of other makers here that are in a similar boat to me, like in an entrepreneurial sense. And I’ve had lunch meetings with people that are also working in the shop that we just talk through ideas and it’s way more casual than what I used to do being in a firm. And it makes for like a lot more of a relaxed lifestyle I would say. But I’m still like working my ass off.

Ron Bauman: Cool. So, talk to me more about the community here at NextFab and how that’s helped you get to where you’re at today.

Mel Sage: I would say I typically meet someone almost every time I come in here, someone new. And it’s super exciting, whether I’m just walking past one of the workbenches and seeing a new interesting thing that someone’s making, or just a new face. I try to say hello to as many people as I can, because there are a lot of people in here making really cool stuff. I’ve met people that make traditional woodworking stuff, to people who are making large-scale digital fabricated stuff on the CNC router.

Mel Sage: So, it’s really all types of projects that are going on, and people are really easy to talk to about how to make things for free. I don’t need to take a class to learn how to use certain machines because people are really friendly and if I see someone working on something, I’ll just ask if they can show me how it’s done really quickly and people are really friendly here.

Ron Bauman: So that knowledge sharing is really a really important element of the community here.

Mel Sage: Yes. Yeah, knowledge sharing I would say is definitely. It’s very open here, and it’s a very nice relaxed community.

Ron Bauman: And you’ve taken that next step to actually, you teach here as well.

Mel Sage: Yeah. Yeah, so I do teach here part time. I teach introduction to Adobe Illustrator and Illustrator for laser cutting. And I’m about to start teaching Rhino too.

Ron Bauman: Oh, nice.

Mel Sage: Those are all programs that I learned in school and throughout my architectural career. That’s been a cool transition too, and definitely has integrated me more into NextFab and just getting to know the staff better and stuff like that.

Ron Bauman: Sure. What’s your favorite piece of equipment here in the shop?

Mel Sage: Good question. I think my favorite piece of equipment would probably be, I love the laser cutter, but I feel like I know it too well for it to be exciting for me or I don’t know. In the actual wood shop I would say the table saw, it’s really fun to just like get into a groove on it and yeah, just rip through stuff. So yeah, probably the table saw.

Ron Bauman: Do you work in any other departments? You work in metalworking?

Mel Sage: I don’t. I would love to learn more metal stuff. I should probably sign up for some classes soon. I feel like I get so enthralled in what I’m doing that I forget that I can take all of these awesome classes here. So, that’s definitely something on my list.

Ron Bauman: Awesome. Do you ever collaborate with any of the other members on projects?

Mel Sage: I haven’t collaborated with anyone yet, but like I said, I’ve talked to other makers about how to make certain things, so currently I just got asked to do a commission for someone’s wedding where I’m going to be making this mountainous scene with wood, and then it’s going to be like the guest book, so people can sign it at the wedding. And I’ve been talking to my friend Emily who, she’s an amazing woodworker. She’s been woodworking for years.

Ron Bauman: Emily, she’s a member here?

Mel Sage: Emily Bunker.

Ron Bauman: Oh yeah, sure. Of course.

Mel Sage: Yeah. She’s been guiding me in different ways that I can make this piece because she has more technical knowledge in the wood shop than I do.

Ron Bauman: Mel goes on to tell us about her inspirations, why she loves using laser cutting and answers the age-old question, “Why wood?”.

Mel Sage: I think wood, especially with what my product is about right now, which I draw a lot of inspiration from nature and topography, so wood being more of a natural material, that’s what drew me to it. And I always have just been drawn to wood. Like I said, when I was in college, I would make my models out of wood for whatever reason. There’s just a quality of it. I think the fact that you can stain it, or paint it, or sand it in a certain way, you can change the look of it pretty easily. And the grain obviously is beautiful, and follows that look that topography has as well. So, I think there’s an interesting connection to nature through using wood as a material.

Ron Bauman: How does the laser cutting come into play?

Mel Sage: I design everything through sketching first, and then I’ll design it on the computer. And when I say sketching, some of my pieces are just straight pieces. So, I don’t do any of the curvature aspect. With the straight pieces, I design that through sketching, and then I’ll take it to my computer. With the topographic stuff, I had literally just traced topo maps on my computer, so not much sketching.

Mel Sage: Once I create everything digitally in AutoCAD, then I’ll send it all over to Adobe Illustrator, and get everything formatted for the laser cutter. And so with my pieces, and I’ll show you later, I create these tabs and numbers to each of the pieces of wood because they’re going to start stacking on each other. So, it ends up being sort of a big puzzle.

Ron Bauman: Okay. Like Jenga?

Mel Sage: Yeah. All of these pieces are numbered, so I know where to place them when I’m actually assembling it. And so with the laser cutter, all of my pieces are laid out just on a flat surface. And then I’ll have the laser cutter come in and do all of my cutting and scoring of all of the tabs and the numbers.

The discussion moved towards the business-side of Sage Woodworks, where Mel sells her art pieces, and some of the challenges of being an entrepreneur.

Mel Sage: I do local markets as much as I can, and I just recently joined a gallery up in Brooklyn. So, I’m sort of doing both of those scenes right now, the market scene and the gallery scene. And I’m kind of like straddling that right now. I’m not really sure which direction I’ll end up falling on more heavily. But yeah, I make an inventory for those shows, and then I try to keep my inventory up as much as I can. But obviously I’m just a single maker right now, so we’ll see if I can get my inventory where I need it.

Ron Bauman: And you’re also a part of Good Measure, correct?

Mel Sage: Yeah. I sell pieces in Good Measure right now with through Ross Stoops.

Ron Bauman: Yeah, and Good Measure, just for our audience, so they know, is a brick and mortar retail storefront in South Philly. Not too far away from the shop here where a lot of the members are selling their work on consignment through there.

Mel Sage: Yeah. It’s commission-based. I basically lend my work to the Good Measure and then when it sells I get a percentage based on that sale. Or I guess Ross gets the percentage, and I get the principle.

Ron Bauman: Awesome.

Mel Sage: And I’m in a store in Haddonfield, New Jersey as well, called Meraki Market. And that one, they sell wholesale, so that’s great. So, I get to just sell them my work, and then if they sell it, that’s great. But that’s the end of the transaction. And I’m about to meet up with someone from the Common Room in North Philly. I’m going to be part of it. That’s another makers’ retail space. Much like the Good Measure.

Ron Bauman: I have to check them out.

Mel Sage: Yeah, and then I also sell on Cactus Collective, which is a vintage shop in South Philly.

Ron Bauman: Are you doing anything online, or is it mostly through these markets?

Mel Sage: Yeah, so I have a website.

Ron Bauman: Of course.

Mel Sage: My website…

Ron Bauman: Sage Woodworks.

Mel Sage: sagewoodworks.org.

Ron Bauman: .org. You got the.org going. Nice. You’re not a nonprofit though, right?

Mel Sage: No.

Ron Bauman: No? You just like the.org?

Mel Sage: I couldn’t get the .com.

Ron Bauman: Oh, good move. Good move.

Mel Sage: I had to do it. Yeah, so I have my website. And I tried doing Etsy, but I wasn’t really getting a lot of traction on Etsy, so the website’s been going pretty well. I would like to make more sales online. It’s always exciting to get a sale online that is from someone I don’t know. So, that’s happened a couple of times where I’m like, “Yes, the word is getting out.”

Ron Bauman: That’s great. Do you enjoy being an entrepreneur?

Mel Sage: Yes. I love being an entrepreneur. I like making my own schedule, and being my own boss.

Ron Bauman: Nice.

Mel Sage: Yeah.

Ron Bauman: Awesome. What are some of the challenges that you face?

Mel Sage: I think for me, the challenges that I face are more mental than anything else. It was hard leaving my old job, and walking away from a salary-based position to just really being responsible for my own income, and everything that’s attached to that. Just convincing myself that I made the right move and that things are going to continue to progress. It’s up and down. Some days, I have great opportunities coming at me and I’m really excited, and then there will be days when I feel like there’s not much happening, so I need to keep myself motivated and stay positive about everything.

Ron Bauman: How do you do that?

Mel Sage: I just try to take it day by day, and I try to do yoga and that sort of thing to keep my mind steady.

We wrapped our conversation by discussing women in the workshop, advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, and what the future holds in store for Sage Woodworks.

Mel Sage: At NextFab, I really don’t notice the fact that I’m working in a male-dominated space as much. There may have been one or two times where my ear perks up, but for the most part, this is a space where everyone is equal. I really don’t notice much-

Ron Bauman: There’s no mansplaining going on?

Mel Sage: No, not so much.

Ron Bauman: Okay, good.

Mel Sage: No. Actually, I’ve had a lot of men ask me how to do things, which is really great. And I’ve had men ask me to help them lift things and stuff, which-

Ron Bauman: That’s got to be empowering.

Mel Sage: Yeah, you don’t like get that everywhere. So, it really is a space that’s, I’m not just saying this, it is a space that’s really, it’s equal. Men and women I would say are pretty equal. And I would say it’s probably a third of the population, at least in the wood shop is women. So, I do see women in the shop.

Ron Bauman: All right, so you’re not outnumbered too bad.

Mel Sage: It’s not too bad, no.

Ron Bauman: That’s good. Awesome. So, what advice would you give to a young budding entrepreneur? Someone looking to make that leap and following your footsteps, and do what you did.

Mel Sage: I feel like there are two schools of thought in this. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Don’t leave your old job and become an entrepreneur until you’re like ready to do it. Everything’s set up, and you know that financially you can do it. Everything’s where you need it to be.” I disagree with that thought.

Ron Bauman: I do too, by the way.

Mel Sage: Yeah, I think you just need to go for it.

Ron Bauman: Dive in head first.

Mel Sage: You just got to get out of what’s making you unhappy, and pursue something that’s making you happy. And if it doesn’t work out, which I don’t think that’s a failure either. I would say if things aren’t working out, that just means you need to sort of change your footing a little bit and just change the way that you’re approaching it. So, yeah.

Ron Bauman: Awesome. So what’s the future hold for Sage Woodworks?

Mel Sage: For Sage Woodworks, the future right now is just about getting into more shows, getting the word out there. I’m just trying to gain more traction in terms of having a bigger following, so that people know my work, and I get to make more sales based off of that. Just getting it to be a little more steady. And eventually, I would like to have my own studio as much as I love NextFab, and it’s been an incubator for me, and I’ll probably be here for a few more years.

Ron Bauman: Right.

Mel Sage: Eventually, I would like to have my own creative space, and just be able to send packages from my shop, not my apartment address.

Ron Bauman: That’s great. Well, as much as we like to see people grow and members here grow and move on and get bigger and better, we always want you to stay here. And I think people, they don’t ever really fully leave NextFab. I think once you’re here, you’re always a member, even if you have graduated through.

Mel Sage: Right. It is that sort of community, and it’s cool when you walk through the lobby, you see all these photos of people that have made things here in the past, and even some examples of their work. And it just from working here, I know that those people, they don’t still work here. So, it’s cool that NextFab gives tribute to people that have made things here. They’re not mad that they left. They’re happy that they made something.

Ron Bauman: And that’s why I feel bad. This shouldn’t be necessarily the end of the rainbow for anybody, but this is really, the place where it gets you to where you want to be as an entrepreneur, even as an enthusiast, and as somebody who, we talked about earlier, how do we go from passion, to project, to product? And I think that’s really great what you’re doing, and we’re really happy for you, and excited for you.

Mel Sage: Thank you. Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now without NextFab.

Ron Bauman: That’s awesome. Well, we wish you the best of luck. We look forward to seeing you around the shop.

Mel Sage: Thanks.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Break Through. I’m your host, Ron Bauman, serial entrepreneur, founder of Milk Street Marketing, and NextFab member. If you are enjoying our show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a review. To learn more about how NextFab can help make your ideas come to life. Visit nextfab.com, and follow #nextfabmade on social to see what our members are making.

Come back for our next episode featuring Jessie Garcia of Tozuda, who developed a head impact sensor to help detect concussions in sports and in the workplace.

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