Homecoming Part 2: Renovations, a Nasty Beetle, and the Floor that Tells a Dozen Stories
This is Part 2 in a three-part series exploring the history of 12 Stars Media and our move to our permanent home in Noblesville. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.
Inside an old house in Noblesville, Indiana, renovation crews have been hard at work. Where walls stood for decades, new doorways take shape. Long-dried paint and plaster give way to century-old brick underneath. Where the floors were once thin carpet that had seen better days, craftsmen meticulously lay down freshly milled planks of Indiana hardwood. And though the whole house teems with history and every renovation reflects months, if not years, of inspiration, it’s that wood floor that may tell the best story about the recent past of 12 Stars Media—and its present.
Meeting Characters Who Inspire Change
This story is one of community built around characters, and it starts with a tour of a furniture workshop in Indianapolis - Purposeful Design, whose mission is to give jobs to people who have struggled with homelessness and addiction.
Joe Frank, 12 Stars Media’s Director of Photography, remembers the lasting impression Purposeful Design left on him. “We went to tour the facility several years ago. They were working on our conference table and some other furniture for our office and we wanted to see the workshop in person,” says Joe. “A normal part of their tour is for whoever leads it to share their story, and our host had a really amazing story.”
Impressed and inspired, Joe took the lead in producing a video featuring Andrew, the Purposeful Design employee who led the tour that day, and the broader story of turning tragedy into something beautiful. For Joe and several others on the 12 Stars Media team, this experience of pursuing projects that speak to them and help to build strong communities has become an integral part of their everyday experience.
“When I first joined 12 Stars Media, we were doing great work - but not every project had this kind of emotional investment,” says Joe. “Sometime in the last few years, though, that dynamic has flipped. We do fewer projects, but the ones we’re working on are telling bigger stories with a real purpose.”
The Greenest Building
That notion of storytelling in many ways defines the current state of 12 Stars Media, and it extends to the vision Rocky Walls and Zach Downs, the founders of the company, had for their first permanent home in Noblesville.
In early 2018, Rocky and Zach started considering what it would take for the company to buy land and build a new HQ for 12 Stars Media. However, inspired by a quote from architect Carl Elefante, “The greenest building is the one that is already built,” and a little nostalgia from their first office in Greenfield, the team quickly abandoned any notion of building a new office from the ground up and turned their sights on finding a sturdy place to renovate.
Grant Michael, Associate Producer, traces some of the team’s passion for sustainability and the environment back to their work with the Indy Office of Land Stewardship. “We’ve done a couple of projects with the Indy Land Stewardship team and we’ve learned a lot from following their staff around as they work to restore and maintain our natural areas.”
One story of note was that of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle species threatening a large percentage of the city’s ash trees. The 12 Stars Media team produced a short film that introduces every staff member of Indy Land Stewardship and takes the viewer on a tour of the vast work required to restore and maintain Indiana’s wetlands, which includes, in part, efforts to remedy the damage done by the emerald ash borer.
“The staff at the Indianapolis Office of Land Stewardship is putting their blood, sweat, and tears into our natural areas,” says Rocky. “A lot of us don’t realize how much work it takes to care for the land or the impact these natural areas have on our lives. They aren’t just beautiful places to have a picnic or take a walk.”
The short films and video clips produced by 12 Stars Media have become an education tool for Indy Land Stewardship to help attract volunteers and donors to support their important work. In order to appreciate the hard work and impact, you really have to meet the characters responsible. Following them around some of the most beautiful landscapes in Indy and learning from their decades of experience is like having a private ecology instructor leisurely guide you through your favorite park.
“These stories represent a shift in media consumption and its impact on world issues as a whole,” Rocky says. “This is not a Johnny-on-the-spot, Facebook Live video, not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he adds. “But, most Facebook Live videos are not necessarily going to change the way you live your life.” This deep-diving, mini-documentary, however, gives every viewer a really special opportunity to see a whole year’s worth of efforts spread across every corner of the city. For 12 Stars Media, this quality over quantity mindset is permeating everything from their work on short films and videos to their own buying habits and the influence they want to have on their community. It’s even tied to their motivation for purchasing a sturdy building that already exists instead of adding more to a world that already has a lot.
Community Coming Full Circle
Another example of quality over quantity: 12 Stars Media’s work with Ash Blaeds, a boutique smithing shop in McCordsville, Indiana. The story of Aric Geesaman is one that’s becoming more familiar in recent years. Aric is a true craftsman, who custom builds every blade he makes as an investment, not a commodity. With a name like Ash Blaeds, perhaps it comes as no surprise that Aric makes extensive use of Indiana ash wood—procured from local lumber company Indy Urban Hardwood—as blade handles.
There it is again: Ash wood.
“That’s the thing about digging deeper and building community through our work,” says Rocky. “Rather than saying yes to every opportunity and only understanding a project enough to make a quick video and move on, we’re building deeper relationships with fewer people. That leads to something really special. And when you dig deep, you find all kinds of fun connections you might otherwise miss. In this case, one of those connections was ash wood.”
Fast forward to 2019, and 12 Stars Media has purchased the perfect home, a large house in Noblesville, Indiana. Working with construction crews to begin re-shaping the space, the team sees an opportunity they may have never noticed if not for the community they’ve built over time. It’s clear the floors need a lot of work and will need to be torn out completely and built back up from scratch. And, in their minds at least, there is no better material than salvaged wood from fallen ash trees.
Inspired by Aric’s artisan work at Ash Blaeds and the knowledge gained from trudging around in the woods with Indy Land Stewardship, the team reached out to make one more connection. This time to Brian Presnell at Indy Urban Hardwood, a supplier of local wood to many artisans and craftsmen including Ash Blaeds, to purchase the ash they’d need. Raw lumber in hand, they called upon old friends at Purposeful Design to mill the wood into plank flooring and get it ready for installation. Once complete, something as simple as the floor in an office space becomes yet another vehicle for telling the many stories 12 Stars Media has gathered through years of community-building.
The floors are every visitor’s invitation to unravel a long thread of 12 Stars Media’s community. Of the life-changing mission of Purposeful Design. The sustainable sourcing of Indy Urban Hardwood. The craftsmanship of Ash Blaeds. The vital ecological work of Indy Land Stewardship. In that way, this old-home-made-new in Noblesville acts as 12 Stars Media’s very own studio and theater, a place where the bonds of community are made and reinforced every day.
“These films and videos can help change our communities and our world. They’ve changed us,” says Rocky. “And, now we can also tell the stories of a dozen or more interesting characters whenever someone steps foot in our new space on our beautiful wood floors.”
