Brian Callan Reclaims Ireland’s Fallen Trees—and its Tradition of Harp-making
Brian Callan is part of a slow, steady revival of traditional harp-making in the Emerald Isle. Most of his handmade harps are built from fallen trees—some of them ancient; each with a story to tell.
The Moral Lessons of a Fountain Pen
Back in the day—in this case, from the early 1900s to around 1950—if someone wanted to write anything down with permanence, they reached for a pen of the kind one rarely sees anymore. These were called fountain pens, and their highly refined nibs (that inch-long piece at the pen’s business end, which delivers ink in…
A Chiseled Education
My understanding of the chisel, a common tool at my workbench, grew until I thought I knew everything about it. Then a revelation occurred that changed both my use of the tool and my sense of how I learned. Consider the mighty wedge, one of the ancients’ most basic machines. Give me a wedge, and…
“Why Choose Handmade?” with Gary Rogowski
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.
Keeping the Beat: Custom-Made Conducting Batons
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?
Do the Most Interesting Musical Pipes Come from Ireland?
While Scottish culture is branded by its famous Highland bagpipes, its neighbor across the water has long made a very different set of pipes that plays a much wider range of music. Our correspondent visits the indefatigable, obsessive makers of the uilleann pipes.
Written by LARRY GALLAGHER
Photography by RUTH CARDEN
Mexico’s Master Guitar Makers
When a Disney film, “Coco,” spotlighted a small Mexican town where almost every shop makes guitars, it suddenly made ornate, white guitars famous. Underneath the new pop icon, however, lies a variety of much finer instruments—and a rich craft going back generations.
Written by LAURA FRASER
Photography and video by ANDREW SULLIVAN
Watch: “The Tools of an Uilleann Pipe-Maker”
Craftsman and musician John Butler demonstrates some of the tools he uses to build Irish uilleann pipes—a notoriously difficult instrument to make, and to play.
Watch “Master of the Chair”
Watch Brian Boggs use (and discuss) his wood rail-bender, which does the work that normally requires two or three people. After the bending, he moves the wood to “the hot room”: 116-120 degrees, 16 percent humidity. (He also uses the hot room to dry mullein and stinging nettle for tea.)
