Wednesdays in Red Hook… with Evan Yee

Welcome to ‘Wednesdays in Red Hook’, a new series that gives a close-up look into the hard work, unexpected encounters, and delightfully mundane moments that make up an average day in Red Hook.

Today we’re trailing Evan Yee, a metalworker and artist who has lived and worked in Red Hook for over 10 years. His studio is in Liberty Labs, a nonprofit he co-founded to host designers, makers, and artists, near The Red Hook Winery. Evan was generous enough to let us follow him along on the last Wednesday in March.

6:30 a.m. Evan is woken by some stressful thoughts about his two trucks, which both need quite a bit of work. His Toyota Tundra is having engine problems. Meanwhile, a family friend generously gave him a 2003 Toyota Tacoma, but it has its own issues, including chewed up wires. He eventually falls back to sleep.

7:45 a.m. Evan wakes up a second time and gets out of bed. As he does most mornings, he makes a matcha for his wife Lizzie and a latte for himself with the Rocket Espresso Mozzafiato machine that was a 30th birthday/pandemic purchase. He takes a picture of his latte art every day to see if he’s improving.

“Recently I’ve been getting worse,” he claims.

Writer’s note: Evan can do a very impressive latte art heart and should be proud.

8:30 a.m. He heads outside to test a new fuse on the Toyota Tacoma that he installed the other day, only to discover a $65 ticket on his car. He doesn’t know much about cars so he uses the internet and neighbors to figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it: “It turns out having your hood open on Pioneer Street invites a lot of people who know something about cars. There’s one guy who has a really nice Porsche on Pioneer who helped me diagnose an air intake problem the other day.”

9:30 a.m. Evan heads to his shop at Liberty Labs. Upon arrival, he plays a game of Pac-Man on the shop’s arcade machine. His end score is 41,000 points. The high score is currently 67,000 held by fellow shop guy, Reed.

9:45 a.m. Evan gets some computer work out of the way. He responds to emails and then orders $4,500 worth of brass for a chandelier and sconce he is engineering and fabricating for a local artist. The price of brass has gone up recently, so he emails the artist to let them know about the updated costs and to confirm recent design changes.

12:00 p.m. Evan decides the Tacoma needs some professional attention, so he brings it over to Alpha Motors under the BQE. They took a look at the truck, let him know his tires are 15 years old, and then provided a quote for the work needed on the car. Between the brass and the Tacoma, this Wednesday is turning out to be a $6,565 day for Evan.

1:00 p.m. After biking back to the shop (he had thrown his bike into the back of the Tacoma), Evan continues to work on some of the brass tubes for the chandelier and sconce: “A lot of my day is spent cutting parts, welding parts, machining parts with a lot of slow thinking and calculating in between. A lot of careful steps in which you can’t go back.”

3:00 p.m. It’s (a late) lunch time. He heads to the shop’s cozy kitchen and living space to make a homemade Crunchwrap Supreme. On days when he has a little more time, he makes the Crunchwrap in the fireplace. Today, the hot plate will have to do.

He eats half of a day old Crunchwrap Supreme while he makes a fresh one. After lunch, he throws some darts with fellow shop mates Sam and Jess, then they flip through Liberty Lab’s new book about the shop’s ten-year history. Evan posts a quick story on Liberty Lab’s Instagram account to promote the book.

4:00 p.m. Evan heads over to Matthew Day Perez’s Shiny Sparkle Studio. Matthew’s studio is making the glass component of the sconce that Evan is working on and he wants to make sure that he’s drilling holes in the right spot to mount the glass portions. Turns out he is on the right track!
Evan and Matthew head back to Liberty Labs to discuss a few upcoming projects, including a request to make a large piece for a penthouse in Miami.

5:00 p.m. As Evan heads back into his shop, Pac-Man Top Record Holder Reed stops by to ask what missing screw he needs for a refurbished Festool tool he bought online. Evan identifies it as an “M4” thread and even has a few for Reed: “I feel like what I do most often for people in the shop is figure out screw threads. I’m better at Imperial than Metric. But, I usually have the screw people are looking for.”

6:45 p.m. Evan heads down to Strong Rope Brewery, where, as a “Mug Club” member, he is entitled to one free beer a day. Today he grabs a mug of the Eleven pilsner. Evan and Reed watch the sunset from the loading dock, a regular occurrence for the Liberty Labs squad. Afterwards, Evan heads back to the shop to finish the working day with a bit more metal work.

7:57 p.m. Evan returns home, where Lizzie has a bowl of potato soup with guanciale (pork cheek) from Meat Hook waiting for him.

9:00 p.m. After dinner, Lizzie and Evan watch the backlog of TikTok videos that she texted him throughout the day. Today’s videos include Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie discussing how Aragorn, a character from “Lord of the Rings,” is every girl’s dream crush and a critique of the finishing details of the New Museum renovations. Eventually, they put down the phone for their books. Evan is currently reading the sci-fi novel “Rama II”: “In the first Rama and Rama II, the solar system is visited by an unidentified ship, but you don’t know exactly what is on that ship. I won’t say more… but, it does eventually put me to sleep around ten-thirty or eleven. I’m not sure exactly, but I was definitely asleep by eleven.”

To learn more about Liberty Lab Foundation’s 10th anniversary book, visit the Lab’s Instagram, @libertylabsfoundation.