What do you do with a meteorite? Make a knife…
Once upon a time, around 2014, Bob Kramer, a Master Bladesmith who had made his name by hand-forging some of the world’s finest kitchen knives, was itching for a new frontier. He wanted a project that had some local origins; the only problem was that the American Northwest, where he lived, never produced any iron.…
Listen to “The Soul of the Italian Shoe”
In Venice, Italy, a city built for endless walking, a determined young woman named Daniela Ghezzo has mastered the rare art of simultaneously beautifying and comforting the human foot.
Listen to “The World’s Greatest Goldbeater”
Marino Menegazzo hammers gold leaf by hand into sheets 200 times thinner than a human hair. He works in the same studio where Titian, one of Italy’s great Renaissance artists, once lived and painted. Now Menegazzo’s craft, where the hand can still beat a machine, is on the edge of extinction.
Listen to “Do the Most Interesting Musical Pipes Come from Ireland?”
While Scotland is branded by its famous Highland bagpipes, Ireland has long made a very different kind that plays a much wider range of music. Meet the indefatigable, obsessive masters of Irish uilleann pipes.
Venice, Gondolas, and Black Magic
After suffering a year of twin terrors—historic floods and the Covid pandemic—the makers of Venice’s legendary gondolas are struggling to survive. To understand the unique design, history, and mystery behind this much-loved boat, our correspondent spent a year with Roberto Dei Rossi, one of the city’s last master gondola makers.
By ERLA ZWINGLE
High-Tech Help for a Low-Tech Craft
John Butler obviously appreciates the old-school handcrafting involved in the age-old trade of making Irish uilleann pipes — a style of bagpipes that are substantially more complex than their Scottish cousins — and he’s not shy about turning to high technology when the need arises. As but one example, in an attempt to streamline the…
From Guns to Bicycles
Customers at Thomas Crenshaw’s full-service bike shop, Frame Up Bikes in Pleasant Hill, California, know a lot more about Orbea bikes and its global competitors than they do about the legendary bike company’s cooperative business model. “We know Orbea is a co-operative and worker-owned, but most of our customers don’t,” says Crenshaw. “What they care…
Watch “How do you cut gold that’s 200 times finer than a human hair?”
One way Marino evaluates gold leaf is to look at it against the light. Pure gold transmits green rays; highly alloyed gold with silver transmits pale violet rays.
