Metals

“How I stumbled upon the world’s most perfect eating utensil:” Owen Edwards pays homage to the humble, essential spoon, particularly the version designed by the late, great Massimo Vignelli.

Michael Montenegro is driven to put the products of his imagination into tangible, active forms. After he builds them—often in life-size form, with a rag-tag collage of materials—he becomes them, lives inside them, then delivers them to us with a zany vigor.

When an American-made quartz watch costs up to $1,500 and its counterparts from other countries, including Switzerland, range from $50 to more than $50,000, what’s the difference between them?

Jack Mauch was so eager to begin his life’s work as a craftsman that he didn’t even wait to finish high school, preferring to carve out his own path. And by age 32, he was already creating breathtaking examples of craftsmanship, in everything from furniture-making to ceramics to metalwork.

Ann Morhauser started with nothing but debt in a tiny glassware studio in Watsonville, a coastal community in central California. Now her work is in stores across the country—and in the Smithsonian. What is her secret to artisanal success?

As the economy’s reliance on innovation grows, the offering of toys for girls remains–well, somewhat less than innovative. Fortunately, a few smart women are starting to solve this problem by reviving the time-honored principles of tinkering, this time for girls.

An American woodworker’s love affair with “the best” (and perhaps least-known) sculpture museum in Paris—and what the affair taught him.

Woodworker and author Gary Rogowski makes the case for the Musée des Arts et Métiers as Paris’ best museum, and offers a guide to its extensive holdings.

Blacksmithing, an art as old as the evolution of humanity, is once again seeing an upsurge in popularity, as craft schools, small workshops, and YouTube videos introduce a new generation to the joy of pounding metal. The smiths who came of age in the back-to-the-land resurgence of the ’70s are the elders now, passing down…