USA

In today’s increasingly automated world, why bother toiling with hand tools and sawdust? And what makes someone a master craftsman, or craftswoman? In a new book, Gary Rogowski—a master furniture maker and the founder of Northwest Woodworking Studio, in Portland, Oregon—ruminates on the four decades he has spent “at the bench,” the “magic” in old tools, and the principles of mastery and creative focus, not matter what your calling happens to be.

As we inch closer to another summer, a tinkerer’s mind is likely to go looking for the chance (and the time) to build that rare, handmade item that he or she has always fantasized about. To inspire such glorious flights of fancy, last spring we created a guide—the first of its kind—to the most respected…

For an aspiring craftsperson, the best place in the country to live, based on the area’s support for the arts, would be Minnesota. Once Angela Robins figured that out, she starting putting down roots there—and then finding ways to make beautiful things out of the wood that grew from the roots that others had planted…

Gorgeous pens have always symbolized the art of writing at its finest—the quintessential combination of beauty, tradition, and skill. But did you ever think of the fountain pen as a tool of environmental consciousness? Our author certainly does. Considering the fountain pen’s myriad varieties, and the powers of vintage pens in particular, he also shops very selectively, cleans his pens regularly, and searches for (and sometimes even makes) the perfect ink.

If your pen skips—a very common problem—it might just be clogged. Fountain pens need to be clean to work right, and fountain pen ink will eventually dry and clog the very tiny capillary channels that funnel the ink to the nib. So cleaning your pen regularly is a good idea. And this task doesn’t have…

Jill Giordano makes women’s clothing in what might be called sustainable designs: coats, pants, and dresses made with fine fabrics in timeless styles, and in combinations that can be mixed and matched any number of ways. Welcome to the art of “system” dressing—with quality. The goal: Improve your look, save the planet, and save money.

Hugo Kohl makes his vintage-style jewelry in six different precious metals, from silver to gold and platinum, and from 14 karat to 18 karat levels of metal quality. Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) is an international nonprofit organization that serves as the primary organization of jewelers and metal artists in North America. It advances…

Across the U.S., scores of schools and other programs offer courses and workshops in everything from boat-building to glass blowing to knife making. But no one has created an informed guide to all these courses—until now. If you’ve always wanted to become a better woodworker, make and smoke your own sausage, or fix your grandfather’s antique violin, here are detailed descriptions of the nine best programs we could find.

While today’s divisive political climate can certainly feel discouraging, the good news is that it has spawned a fertile variety of projects that aim to make discussion of the day’s issues more civil, more informed, and (one hopes) more productive. Here are the main players on the stage at the moment: One of the early…