Some environments teach without structuring themselves as classrooms.
In supported studios, instruction certainly happens at times - a facilitating artist may show someone a process they want to learn, and formal guidance can appear when it’s useful - but much of the knowledge in these spaces moves through osmosis. It circulates through gestures, rhythms, attention, and proximity. People absorb what they need by being attuned to and part of the environment.
Supported studios are places where information is out in the open, available to absorb or respond to in whatever way is suitable - whether that means trying something new, asking another artist, or consulting a facilitating artist.
To understand this kind of knowledge-sharing, it’s helpful to look at other settings where learning emerges communally rather than hierarchically:
• The Romanian șezătoare
A șezătoare was a traditional gathering where women met to spin wool into yarn, embroider, mend clothing, and prepare textiles for the household. Techniques and operations were articulated initially - a foundational orientation - and then the learning came from the hours of hands doing, eyes watching, and ears listening. Skill deepened through repetition and shared presence. These gatherings were not just instructional; they were social cohesion in action, binding the community through a collective rhythm of labor and conversation.
• Barbershops and Hair-Braiding Studios
These spaces offer both technical and relational forms of learning. One can observe how someone sections hair, applies pressure, or redirects a cut — but just as visible is how people respond to people. A barber sensing discomfort and adjusting, the way trust is conjured through tone, touch, and timing, the small rituals that communicate safety and care. Information here includes technique, yes, but also the embodied art of relationship-building.
• Gyms and Movement Spaces
Gyms are saturated with ambient knowledge. Bodies learn from other bodies: how someone sets their stance, the timing of breath, how balance is regained, the decisions made mid-rep when something unexpected happens. None of this is hidden. It lives in the open, available to anyone ready to watch with intention or curiosity.
Supported studios operate on the same principle. They are not classrooms; they are ecosystems where learning emerges through shared engagement with material, space, and one another. A facilitator’s motion across a table, the way an artist experiments with a new tool, the tentative first attempt of someone approaching a material they’ve never touched before — all of this becomes instructional, even when no one is formally teaching.
I witnessed this most clearly during my initial years as a facilitating artist. The art studio was part of a larger Day Hab program, which meant participation was voluntary. It was one of several spaces to occupy, and people could approach it at their own pace. For some, that meant months of avoiding the studio altogether - overwhelmed by its unfamiliar materials, routines, and expectations. Eventually, many felt comfortable enough to sit off to the side and simply watch how others moved through the space.
They learned the room before they ever engaged with it: how facilitators supported without directing, how artists made decisions about their work, where silence lived, where excitement showed up, and how the energy shifted depending on who was present. That slow acclimation was not a barrier to learning - it was the learning. The studio introduced itself long before anyone introduced a material.
Many educational settings rely on a clear hierarchy of information: instructors hold it, and they distribute it in the manner they believe will most effectively and uniformly reach those they teach. This is a top-down approach. Supported studios form something closer to a web - with bits of information moving in every direction, available to absorb at the pace necessary for each person.
When information is out in the open, people gain access to more than technique. They gain access to a culture: a way of being with materials, a way of making choices, a way of navigating uncertainty alongside others. They see creative decisions unfold in real time, not because someone told them how to proceed, but because the room is full of examples to study, absorb, and someday extend.
This is one of the quiet strengths of supported studios. They create conditions where learning is ambient and shared, where discovery is social, and where growth is shaped by what the community makes available to one another. It is a form of learning that honors pacing, respects autonomy, and trusts that people learn best when the world around them reveals its possibilities openly.
In spaces like these - the șezătoare, the barbershop, the gym, the studio - knowledge has the opportunity to circulate. It moves sideways. It settles where it is needed. And it grows in the presence of others.
This is the value of information out in the open. It lets people learn not by being told, but by being part of a living field of shared attention and creative practice.
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