Comment by ktallett
17 hours ago
If only the apprenticeships to do them paid well enough. Perhaps a subsidy to maintain potentially forgotten crafts and skills.
Reading Craft land by James Fox, there are many skills we need but we can't seem to fund to maintain.
It's not specified how long the apprenticeships last or what qualifications you need.
But even the full-time job doesn't pay that well: $60K/year, after bonuses. And the company recently had layoffs and moved the plant an hour west, from North Adams, Mass., to Albany, New York. And you have to stand eight hours a day, and half of people drop out of the apprenticeship for whatever reason.
The fact is that an artistically skilled person in the Northeast could find better-paying, less physically taxing, and probably more stable work.
more absurdity: I aprenticed with old time masters in more than one trade, and have worked in and around many other trades, and have taken on aprentices(officialy) in trades that I am unpapered in, have requests from trade schools to take on more aprentices, but, BUT, I cant work officialy in those trades, because I am unpapered, and cant get insurance, without going to trade school, and doing an aprenticship first.