WELCOME

BY ADAM SAVAGE

Watch, Learn, Do

Observing my father make things when I was young

instilled confidence in my own abilities.

Growing up, I was given specific advantages as a maker. My father, the painter Lee Savage, was a living example of a committed maker:

painter, animator, illustrator, director. My primary

memory of him, growing up, is of him painting every

day for hours in his studio out back, and living in a

house populated with art made by close friends.

When, for my sixth or seventh birthday, I wanted

a race car for my teddy bear, Gus, he made one out

of fiberglass for me. He built a succession of decks

behind our house, built the addition on his studio,

and fixed the chairs he broke leaning back too far.

I watched it all.

His studio was a laboratory of excellent primary

building materials: mat board, Rapidograph pens,

acetate (which he used to paint cels for animated

spots he did for Sesame Street), armature wire, and

like to watch, and love to help, and already I can

masking tape. I was never turned away for want of

see the fruits of these efforts starting to bloom.

an art material.

I can see both boys learning to put something

By the age of 12, I had permission to use my

they want to make into their heads. I can see them

father’s charge account at the local hardware store.

trying, failing, succeeding, and trying again to get

At 18, when I moved into Manhattan, he let me

that thing made.

charge art materials on his account at the art store.

They’re both showing a facility for music. I’m

I was stoked. When I got ambitious, and asked for

encouraging the spit out of this. The ability to enjoy

things like 20 sheets of corrugated cardboard, the

doing a thing excellently, the ability to enjoy the

answer was always yes. I never abused this privi-

work involved — to know that trial and error and

Illustration by Adam Koford; photograph by Cody Pickens

lege. It honestly never occurred to me.

even failure may lie ahead, but that they aren’t

I don’t imagine that my father set out to create

enough to inhibit your forward progress — this is

an artist. But I’m pretty sure he figured that every-

what I hope to teach them.

one has a responsibility to learn how the world went

Part of gaining the courage to plug ahead with

together, and much of that learning is simply paying

anything is acquiring the confidence that you’re

attention.

going to be able to understand what’s going to go

My twin boys, Addison and Reilly, are now

on. The more things you build and make, the more

approaching 11. I don’t spoil them, but I do want

things you take apart and break, the more you

them to be makers. So I don’t end up building a

understand many of the critical workings of the

ton of stuff for them.

world. The more you pay attention, the more that

But: I’ve bought models for them, and shown

attention pays you back.

them how to put them together. I’m always using

one or the other as an assistant for my projects,

whether fixing something in the house or my car,

or putting together a piece of a costume. They’ve

spent the day at work with me many times. They

Adam Savage is an American industrial designer, special effects designer/fabricator, actor, educator, and co-host of the Discovery Channel television series MythBusters. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Julie, and two sons.

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