I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Jen Messier and Jonathan Soma, the ‘brains’ behind Brooklyn Brainery, which offers a host of fun, quirky and collaborative classes to help you answer all the questions that make you say, hmmmm.  These inexpensive ($25) classes answer questions like, when did perfume come about (Scents and Sensibility)?  Why does our stomach growl when we’re hungry (Food, Water and Sleep)?  And a host of other classes – including cooking and the art of wood.

Brooklyn Brainery classes are currently offered at The Gowanus Studio Space, but Jen and Jonathan want Brooklyn Brainery to have its own permanent home.  They’ve started a Kickstarter fundraising campaign  and you can also join them at on Saturday, May 15 between 1pm-6pm for a BBQ and Crawfish/Crab Boil 

I’m totally convinced we already peaked your interest, so check out their Schedule of Classes

How did you two meet?
Jen: Soma was my boyfriend’s roommate.  Eventually we realized we both were interested in learning the same kinds of things (nearly anything really), so we started going to lectures and taking classes together and doing silly projects like when we tried to make a different kind of pickle every day for a week. 
Soma: “Seven Pickles Seven Days” was a great project. We’re going to do that again, too, but this time with a bunch of food bloggers. Be warned!

What did you do prior to starting Brooklyn Brainery? 
We both have day jobs—I work at a museum and Soma’s a web developer.

Why did you begin Brooklyn Brainery? 
Jen: We’d always attend lectures and take classes together, and after awhile, it started getting expensive!  We also really like the idea of bringing together a group of people, all from different angles, to approach a topic for a few weeks at a time, which hopefully leads to a more in-depth discussion than a single lecture is able to. 

Soma: I had wanted to take a class about perfume at F.I.T., but they wanted a few thousand dollars of prerequisites out of me first. I figured I could probably learn it all on my own from books and Wikipedia and all, but that it might work better in a group, and voila! The Brainery was born. $25 for a month of classes.

Why the name Brooklyn Brainery?
Jen: I’d actually never realized Brainery was a real word before someone suggested it as our name, but it is, an institute of higher education.  I think we mostly just like the way it sounds. 

Soma: And if you make anything in Brooklyn you have a moral obligation to either add “Brooklyn” or “King’s County” to what you’d call it otherwise.

Where are your classess hosted? 
We’re currently hosting classes at The (awesome) Gowanus Studio Space, just across the street from The Bell House in Gowanus.  It’s a great big space and there’s always people around making cool things, which is super fun.

What’s the maximum space in your class?
It depends on the length of the class—for shorter, two week classes, we try to keep it to around a dozen people.  With the four week classes we go a bit above that, but since participation is a big part of the courses, we like to keep them to a size where everyone can get to know one another.

Who’s the ‘brain’ behind the types of workshops you host?
Jen:  Soma for sure!  Perfume is one of those things that translates well into a hands-on workshop, I think.  There’s obviously a ton to learn about it, but you can also learn the basic building blocks and create something of your own in a couple of hours. 

Soma: Originally all of our courses were four sessions long, but that’s basically forever! We needed an option for people who didn’t want to get married to the topic, but still wanted to have some fun. Perfume is great for that because on one hand you can sit around and talk about the chemistry of odor molecules or the nuance of the industry, while on the other hand you can just put a bunch of scenty bits into a bottle to make your friends sniff.

What’s the feedback you receive from individuals who attend your class?
I think people appreciate the chance to talk with others over a specific topic (and even learn something in the process) which is something that can be hard if you’re not in a formal learning environment.  One of the best parts of this whole thing for us, and I think for everyone, has been getting to meet new people. 
I noticed you’re raising funds for a new home.

Where do you want to call home?
Jen: That’s still up in the air, for sure, and we’re open to lots of places in Brooklyn.  We just want to make sure we’re accessible, especially for people coming from the city or wherever!

Soma: A lot of this process has been meeting other people who run organizations in Brooklyn and seeing how they operate and how we might work together. Some people are looking for space, some have space to offer – it’s turning out to be a lot more than just plopping ourselves down on a map.

Besides finding a new home, what other plans do you have for Brooklyn Brainery?
Soma: One thing I think would be amazing is a supplies library! When you’re getting involved in something new there are always a lot of up-front costs – maybe for tools you aren’t going to use very often, or supplies you aren’t going to use very much of, or books you’re only going to read once. What if the Brainery just had a collection of these things, and you could just plain borrow them?  There are tool libraries all over the US that do this for everything from screwdrivers to jackhammers – we’d like to do it for every hobby or vocation we can think of.

Jen: More workshops! Since it can be hard to commit to a four week course, we’re hoping to have more one-day workshops. We’re also always looking for people to lead classes or workshops, about whatever topic they want.

Who teaches the classes?
Our classes are collaborative! That’s probably the most important thing to know about the Brainery.  Sometimes the person leading the class is an expert on the topic, but sometimes not, and that’s where everyone else comes in. Whether it’s sharing information they learned from the week’s homework or from their own past experiences, it helps create a richer experience when we all have something different to bring to the table.  Sometimes that’s technical knowledge if we’re working on a project, other times it’s being able to explain a scientific concept or knowing how to cook pig’s feet and sharing that with everyone.