What happens when a public artist shifts focus from transforming city spaces to creating moments of quiet reflection? Nova Labs resident maker Tamao Nakayama shares her journey back to her Japanese roots, preserving traditional arts through hands-on workshops, cultural experiences, and the launch of her new venture, Tamao Atelier.

Four or so years ago when my father passed away, Christopher Sexton, woodshop steward and maker of fine dovetailed boxes (I think he’s made upwards of 60 of them), invited me to do some woodworking. He suggested it might be a good way to process things. Something inside me said "Great idea! I want to build an electric guitar!" Always with a gentle voice, he suggested maybe we start with a few other things first. Maybe learn a few things. Ok, Ok. So, with his help: I made a gu

Chris Sexton is on a mission to craft 100 dovetail boxes, one carefully fitted corner at a time. As a volunteer Wood Shop Steward at Nova Labs, Chris helps care for the shop while supporting our ever-growing community of woodworkers.

Every year the American Homebrewers Association has a Big Brew Event where they encourage Home Brewers across the country to spend the first Saturday in May making one of their own recipes. I have participated in this for several years at Jay’s Brewing shop in Manassas, where Jay’s also partners with Downright Obsessed Homebrewers (DOH) to host a competition for local homebrewers, with qualified beer experts as judges, and brewing-related prizes. Since the first Saturday of

Ed. note: Darsh Nand is a member at Nova Labs and got married earlier this year. As part of a unique wedding favor, Darsh and his wife Katrina created laser engraved/cut tokens that were given to guests. Read Darsh's note about it below. My wife and I recently got married and instead of handing out favors to our guests, we asked guests to put a laser cut token (made at Nova Labs!) into a box. The box had an option to pick between two charities/organizations we feel dearly abo