Artisanal traditions, maker culture, and the handmade.
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Showing 61–80 of 167 articles
In 1998, metallurgist John Verhoeven of Iowa State University and bladesmith Alfred Pendray announced they had replicated the distinctive banding pattern of genuine wootz Damascus steel after fifteen years of systematic experimentation.
Thomas Nakamura · 2026-05-29
The quilts of Gee's Bend, Alabama, created by African American women in an isolated community along the Alabama River, were exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002 and compared by critics to the work of Henri Matisse and Paul Klee.
William Ashford · 2026-05-29
When aerospace engineer Sal Glesser founded Spyderco in 1981, he introduced innovations the knife industry had never considered: a round hole in the blade for one-handed opening, a pocket clip for tip-up carry, and a focus on steel metallurgy that treated blade material as an engineering variable rather than a tradition to be preserved unchanged.
Daniel Hurst · 2026-05-29
Amalfi paper, made by hand in the coastal town of Amalfi since the twelfth century, is the material of choice for menu printing at restaurants including Noma in Copenhagen and The Fat Duck in Bray.
Catherine Avery · 2026-05-29
Chartreuse liqueur has been produced by Carthusian monks using the same secret recipe since 1737, a formula known in its entirety by only two monks at any given time.
William Ashford · 2026-05-29
Robin Wood, based in Edale in the Peak District, turns one bowl per week on a pole lathe using green wood and hand-forged tools.
Sebastian Cole · 2026-05-29
A Shetland wool jacket from Jamieson's of Shetland begins its life on the backs of native Shetland sheep grazing the salt-sprayed hillsides of Britain's most northerly islands.
James Alderton · 2026-05-29
AE Williams, founded in Birmingham in 1779, is the oldest pewter workshop in the world still operating from its original premises.
William Ashford · 2026-05-29
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Cremona, a small city on the Po River in Lombardy, has produced stringed instruments of unsurpassed quality since Andrea Amati established his workshop around 1550.
Oliver Ramsey · 2026-05-28
In the early nineteenth century, Scottish fishermen discovered that rubbing their cotton sails with linseed oil rendered them waterproof enough to shed North Sea spray.
Sebastian Cole · 2026-05-28
In the village of Broseley, Shropshire, the last traditional nail maker in England works at a forge producing hand-wrought nails since the eighteenth century.
Catherine Avery · 2026-05-28
The finest English brown oak begins its journey to a cabinet maker's workshop while still standing in the forest.
Sebastian Cole · 2026-05-28
In the upper workshops of Jaeger-LeCoultre's manufacture in Le Sentier, Switzerland, engraver Micheline Hintzy bends over a dial blank measuring thirty-two millimetres in diameter.
Daniel Hurst · 2026-05-28
Francesco Maglia, founded in Milan in 1854, is one of the last umbrella makers in Europe manufacturing its own frames from raw materials.
Daniel Hurst · 2026-05-28
Urushi, the sap of the Toxicodendron vernicifluum tree native to East Asia, is the most durable natural finish known to science.
Sebastian Cole · 2026-05-28
Conceria Walpier, located in the Santa Croce sull'Arno district of Tuscany, supplies vegetable-tanned leather to over three hundred fashion houses and bespoke workshops worldwide.
Catherine Avery · 2026-05-28
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Simon Verity, the Anglo-American stone carver responsible for the carved tympanum above the west portal of the Cathedral of St.
Daniel Hurst · 2026-05-28
A CNC router can cut a dovetail joint in forty-five seconds.
Thomas Nakamura · 2026-05-28
Fragments of woven baskets dating to approximately ten thousand BCE have been found in Guitarrero Cave in Peru, making basketry one of humanity's oldest technologies, predating both pottery and metallurgy.
Catherine Avery · 2026-05-28
In a forge in Shropshire, an anvil bearing the stamp of Mousehole Forge, Sheffield, dated 1847, still rings under the hammer of its fifth-generation owner.
Oliver Ramsey · 2026-05-28