We’re Starting a Patreon!

We’ve decided to start a Patreon, where you can get a subscription to… well us! It seems long overdue to have some way for people to support our work besides buying products.  So what are we doing? We’ll have a subscriber discord where people can ask us questions and discuss topics related to digital fabrication, running a small business, geometry processing, and simulating natural systems, etc. We’ll post regular updates for subscribers about what we’ve been working on and what we’re interested in. We currently have 4 tiers (named after parts of the nervous system of course), but we’d love to hear feedback on what people would like to see from us. Some off the tiers come with physical rewards shipped three times a year such as artwork, jigsaw puzzles, and more. We’re creating a Patreon not only because we need financial support, but also because we need community to continue our work.

Community and Interaction

One of the main ways we’ll connect with our Patreon community is through a subscriber-only Discord. This will be a space where we can chat, share ideas, and show work-in-progress sketches. It’s also a place for us to receive feedback and suggestions from you.

Running a small business today is increasingly challenging, and since we moved to the rural Catskills, it’s been harder to find a local community to engage with in person. So, we’re creating that community online. Through Patreon, we’ll share our love of nature, math, and fabrication techniques. You’ll hear about our projects, including biomedical research on 3D-printed organs, new wooden jigsaw puzzle designs, jewelry fabrication, small business day-to-day activities, experiments for new projects, and even unique items we’re designing for our kids to play with.

Support Tiers

Synapse: The basic tier with access to our community discord and blog posts. If you just want to hang out and discuss cool things like the lichen you saw outside, a new mathematical technique you read about, or have questions about 3D printing, join our Synapse tier. 

Axon: The puzzle lovers tier. We’ve had a lot of people mention the possibility of a puzzle subscription and this is basically that. We will make 3 Patreon exclusive puzzles per year. The aim is for these to be more experimental than our typical puzzles or potentially previews of what’s to come. It’s a chance for us to try out new cuts, techniques or ideas that aren’t quite streamlined for production yet.

Neuron: This tier includes three annual shipments featuring various curiosities from our current projects. You might receive 3D-printed radiolarian sculptures, miniature abstract wooden jigsaw puzzles, or one-of-a-kind archival printed generative art. It’s a surprise every time, and you’ll get to see these items develop through our Patreon community before receiving them.

Galaxy Brain: For those who want to offer significant support to Nervous System, this tier includes exclusive one-on-one and in-person rewards. You can choose between the three-times-a-year physical rewards of the puzzle set or the art set, and you’ll also get access to us through video calls for mentorship, feedback on your projects, or just to pick our brains. Additionally, you can visit our studio in the Catskill Mountains for a day of designing and fabricating something together, whether it’s a jigsaw puzzle or a 3D print.

Special Note for International Supporters: To save on shipping, we will send all three items in one shipment once a year. If you prefer to receive them in three separate shipments, you can contact us to arrange for the additional shipping costs.

Why we’re doing it

We’ve been running Nervous System since 2007, 17 years! Pretty soon I will have been doing this for over half my life. So why are we starting a Patreon now? When we started Nervous System, it felt like the heyday of the internet. Blogging was all the rage, social media was just becoming mainstream. It seemed that if you put something out there, people would find it, share it, and form community. Maybe we’re just getting old, but the internet now feels much more fractured and difficult to navigate. Everything is being put behind walls whether that’s ephemeral social media, private chats or newsletters. The pace has also become insane. It used to be we could release a project and see it have a life over weeks and months as new people discovered it. Now, we’re lucky if interest lasts more than 24 hours. We like the idea of a Patreon as a long term relationship that goes against the trend of just churning out constant content to keep engagement up. We want to share what we’re working on with people invested in seeing it continue and grow.

And the fact of the matter is, we’re looking for a new revenue stream. We’ve always had a strange studio that does experimental research in design and manufacturing while turning that into niche products. For the first 7 years or so of our business we mostly made jewelry. And guess what? It turns out a lot of people don’t wear jewelry. Probably even more so in the circle of people interested in technology, fabrication, and natural simulations. So there have always been a lot of people who are fans of our work that didn’t have a way to support us. And while it used to be that simply liking and sharing our work seemed like enough, we’re now asking for more direct support. That way we can continue to explore the things that excite us instead of figuring out how to go viral on TikTok.

Join Us

We’re really excited to kick off our new Patreon community. It will help us maintain the deadlines and encouragement we need to consistently work on and complete new projects (a challenge when you’re self-employed). Your support will allow us to keep exploring and creating innovative designs and share our journey with you. Join Our Patreon Today!

-Jessica and Jesse