labricoleuse | Final period pattern picture for the year

Classes are officially over and many of our students have already left for their summer jobs, but there are a trio of period pattern half-forms in the hallway from their last project, so i thought i'd photograph them and share them.

I've got some ideas brewing for a series of Ask LaBricoleuse posts coming up. Our 3rd-years are graduating, one of whom did her MFA with a Crafts Artisanship focus, and they're my first class of students who are going out into the job market having taken craftwork classes with me. I was thinking to myself (because i will miss them and cannot wait to see where their careers go), what do i wish my professors had told me when i got out of school? What advice would i go back and give myself, if i could, and what knowledge do i want to impart that i haven't already?

Because the courses i teach cover skills, artisanship, artistry, and craft--how to do things, how things were historically done, how to create beautiful costume items that will hold up for stage and screen. I don't get to cover practical information about working in this field, stuff like the value of recordkeeping or tips on working various kinds of jobs at various levels of production, etc. I don't presume to do anything on a "Randy Pausch's Last Lecture" sort of scale--i'm not dying and i'm speaking from 15 years of professional experience, not like, on the back end of a 40-year career or whatever. Still, 15 years has taken me a lot of places, so like i said, it's brewing.

But i digress! Pictures!