USA

Master woodworker and furniture maker Gary Rogowski discusses the value of handmade work in this episode of “The Secrets of Mastery.” The founder of the Northwest Woodworking Studio, Rogowski is also the author of many books about woodworking and creativity in the digital age.  

As consumer technology improves, basic household appliances, like the washing machine, keep sprouting new, high-tech functions. Not surprisingly, they’re also increasingly difficult to repair. So our journalistic gumshoe ventured to find out: Who put us in this jam? And why?

A good conductor can lead an orchestra with almost anything — even a chopstick. Leonard Bernstein was known to conduct a full symphony with just his eyebrows. Why, then, in this age of cheap manufacturing, are handmade, custom conducting batons still in demand?

Though he calls himself simply a “songster and storyteller,” Andy Hedges is compiling a rich, unique audio archive of cowboy music and poetry—and bringing the legends of the genre together on CD and stage.

A conversation with Stewart Brand, one of the most influential thinkers and pioneers of our time, still known for his 1968 creation, the Whole Earth Catalog. We talk to him about his latest project: a book, being publicly drafted online, entitled “Maintenance: Of Everything”

As consumer technology improves, household mainstays like the basic washing machine keep sprouting new, unnecessary functions. Many of those functions are difficult if not impossible to repair, which makes the life expectancy of our household appliances plummet. What’s going on here? Our journalistic gumshoe hits the streets to figure out who’s pulling the strings in the appliance world.

Craftsmanship’s Contributing Editor Jeff Greenwald caught up with Kyle Wiens, co-founder and CEO of iFixit, the world’s largest repair community, to talk about what makes repair a craft—and where the right-to-repair movement is headed next.

Traditional DIY basics like clothing repair have become covetable knowledge again. With the fast-fashion machine on notice for its abysmal climate footprint, could this be mending’s big moment?

The practice of deliberately making goods not meant to last, or be repaired—a concept called “planned obsolescence”—was invented in America, perfected in America, and can now claim victory in leaving the U.S. with the world’s largest waste stream. Why are we so addicted to buying stuff that will soon be worthless? And what can we do to get off this destructive treadmill?