Mitchell Dose

This month’s installment of Beam’s Staff Spotlight series features our Project Director, Mitchell Dose. Managing our Project Production enterprise, Mitchell collaborates with artists, Beam staff, youth staff, and youth participants to build large projects across Beam’s programming sites, both in NYC and at Beam Camp in New Hampshire.

Mitchell trains participants in the Project Production enterprise, called Fellows, in all aspects of project development and helps fold an artist’s vision into an experience for youth and staff. One of our most recent projects, As Above, So Below, was built at Beam Camp in summer 2022 and was first prototyped by Fellows under Mitchell’s guidance. Working from the artist, Macon Reed’s, vision, the team transferred the project into something that was built by youth as young as 11 years old. 

Mitchell started working at Beam Center in 2014, where he organized small workshops for after school programs and then went to work at Beam Camp to work alongside the existing Project Director. Later, Mitchell took over the role of directing projects at Beam Camp and eventually took on directing our projects here in NYC. Mitchell said he decided to join Beam following a conversation with our Executive Director, Brian Cohen; during this conversation Mitchell realized there was a powerful alignment between his interests and skills and Beam’s mission to provide the opportunities young people in NYC needed.

Mitchell holds a BFA in sculpture from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and has worked in a variety of fabrication roles. Recently, he ran an architectural metalworking studio in New York. One common thread linking his last 15 years of work is his work in education, where he’s built projects small and large with young people, including cardboard castles, Franken-bikes, and vacuum-formed furniture.

Reflecting on his time at Beam, Mitchell says his favorite moments at Beam are when he gets to  watch the transition of youth participants into an adult role at Beam or outside of Beam. Mitchell loves experiencing and supporting the growth of a young person. “I think it’s really interesting nailing down some kind of prototyping of a new process, but watching the folks come through and go through the next thing is my favorite part.” Speaking about what Beam does to support these transitions for young people, Mitchell says, “There’s a lot of trust in taking on ambitious things. Trust needs to be applied to so many different people in order to make it work…trusting the ambitious thing you are taking part in is going to work and trusting in the team to be able to pull it off. There’s a lot of radical trust that keeps getting pushed forward.”

Outside of work, Mitchell continues to pursue creative projects. Over the last year, Mitchell has been working with a friend to build a timber frame cabin. Speaking about the project, Mitchell says, “I have some background in woodworking, but [this] was a way to explore woodworking more in depth and definitely on an architectural scale.” 

We’re extremely grateful for the experience and talent Mitchell has brought to Beam Center since 2014. Join us in thanking Mitchell for making Beam’s Big Projects so special by leaving a comment below!