Follow our podcast for informative, entertaining audio stories and special interviews. You can play or download our podcasts directly from the listings below, on BuzzSprout, and on many popular streaming services, including those shown here:
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Listen to “The Play Gap”
In the inner city neighborhoods of Providence, Rhode Island, Janice O’Donnell set up playgrounds where kids could build anything they want,...
Listen to “What? A Bamboo Bicycle?”
A bicycle made of bamboo might look a little silly—brown and fat, with swollen joints. But Craig Calfee, a respected pioneer of carbon fiber...
Listen to “The Antidote to Fast Fashion? System Dressing”
Jill Giordano makes women’s clothing with fine fabrics in timeless styles, and in combinations that can be mixed and matched in multiple ways....
Listen to “The Rise and Fall of Toy Theatre”
In 19th-century England, miniature theatrical productions were all the rage. And they weren’t just for kids—children and adults alike collected...
Listen to “Can Japan’s Akiya Movement Rebuild Rural Communities?”
In Japan, an aging population, declining birthrate, and a concentrating of jobs in the major cities, has left rural areas across the Japanese...
Listen to “From Bicycles to ‘Pedal Steel’ Guitars: One Maker’s Quirky Frontiers”
Ross Shafer made his mark creating a popular brand of mountain bikes, called Salsa, and a line of small but crucial bicycle parts that no one had...
Listen to “Spoonism”
“How I stumbled upon the world’s most perfect eating utensil:” Owen Edwards pays homage to the humble, essential spoon, particularly...
Listen to “A Conversation with Guest Editor RoseMary Diaz,” A Craftsmanship Artisan Interview
Our Fall 2022 guest editor, RoseMary Diaz, talks with Craftsmanship Quarterly’s managing editor, Laurie Weed, about growing up...
Listen to “The Puppeteer”
Michael Montenegro is driven to put the products of his imagination into tangible, active forms. After he builds them—often in life-size form,...
Listen to “The Value of Time”
When an American-made quartz watch costs up to $1,500 and its counterparts from other countries, including Switzerland, range from $50 to more...
Listen to “The Clay Conjurer”
Felipe Ortega was known for his controversial opinions on culture, as well as his expertise with an unusual form of pottery. He devoted his life...
Listen to “Shrine and the Art of Resilience”
Pandemic, political strife, poverty, war. In times of extreme upheaval—global or personal—can the act of art-making ease suffering and strengthen...
Listen to “A New Renaissance Man”
Meet Jack Mauch, the newest member of our growing family of “Craftsmanship’s Young Turks.” At age 32, Mauch is already creating breathtaking...
Listen to “The Revival of Nero’s Wine”
Throughout history vintners used clay vessels to age their wine, until the French discovered the marvels of the oak barrel. Now—for fun, for...
Listen to “Food Shift”
California, where much of our nation’s food is produced, is facing a historic drought — again. It’s become a familiar refrain, year after...
Tomorrow’s Library
In a simple, residential neighborhood in San Francisco sits a former church for Christian Scientists. The building’s white exterior and...
Listen to “A Woodworker’s Tale”
In today’s automated world, why bother toiling with hand tools and sawdust? In his new book, Gary Rogowski—a master furniture maker in Portland,...
Listen to “The California Mirage”
The blind spots in the American West’s approach to managing water are on full display in Ventura County, a coastal region of Central California...
Listen to “Mezcal’s Dance with Extinction”
Now that the tequila craze has crested, the latest Latin liquor to capture the world’s alcoholic imagination is tequila’s grandfather: mezcal....
Listen to “The Vegetable Detective”
It’s 2015, and in the health and wellness world, the Kale Craze is in full swing — people are eating, roasting, blending, and juicing it. But one...
Listen to “Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser on Healing our Soil, and Going Beyond Organic,” A Craftsmanship Artisan Interview
In this episode of our Artisan Interview audio series, Todd Oppenheimer sits down with Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser, a husband-and-wife farming team...
Listen to “The Glass Builder”
Ann Morhauser started with nothing but debt in a tiny glassware studio in Watsonville, a coastal community in central California. Now her work is...
Listen to “The Hidden Powers of a Sheep”
Not only is wool unusually cozy and durable, but its creators (the sheep) can help regenerate the soil, along with the world’s drying, fire-prone...
Listen to “A Black Artist’s Haven on a (mostly) White Vineyard”
Martha’s Vineyard has long been seen as a summer retreat for the East Coast elite. The island’s reality, however, is a far more complex...
Listen to “The Toolbelt Masters”
With gumption, insight, and brilliant use of social media, a few guys in Virginia built an operation that makes what could be the world’s finest...
Listen to “The New Sign Painters”
The commercial signs of yesteryear, which were all painted by hand, offer a kind of beauty, personality, and longevity that today’s industrial...
Listen to “James & Deborah Fallows on ‘Our Towns’: a Craftsmanship Artisan Interview”
This husband-and-wife journalism team spent four years crisscrossing the United States in a small plane, visiting dozens of small towns. The...
Listen to “The Craft of Sustainable Rice Farming”
The Isbell family of Arkansas has spent decades experimenting with new ways to grow rice. In the process, they pioneered American-grown rice for...
Listen to “The Secret to Vintage Jeans”
In November, 2017, the doors closed on North Carolina’s White Oak plant—one of the first, and (almost) the last, big textile mill in the U.S. to...
Listen to “Parts & Recreation”
What makes people devote hours to the frustrating task of gluing together pieces so small you have to pick them up with tweezers? And does this...
Listen to “Historical Clothing’s Comeback”
A collection of sewing enthusiasts, dedicated to the anachronistic art of making old-fashioned clothes, stumbles onto a path that revives...
Listen to “Could Co-Ops Solve Income Inequality?”
In the Basque country of Northern Spain, the Mondragon Corporation—the world’s largest co-operative business enterprise—has found ways to weather...
Listen to “Rebecca Burgess on Slow Fashion and Place-Based Economies: a Craftsmanship Artisan Interview”
Rebecca Burgess is the executive director of Fibershed, an internationally recognized nonprofit focused on transforming the clothing and textile...
Listen to “The Human Cost of Recycled Cotton”
Organic, recycled, or synthetic: As the fashion industry scrambles to find more sustainable textiles, what’s the future of cotton? And what...
Listen to “Alden Wicker on Sustainable Fashion and Toxic Clothes: a Craftsmanship Artisan Interview”
Alden Wicker, award-winning journalist, sustainable fashion expert, and founder of EcoCult, talks about her disillusionment with the idea of...
Listen to “Argentina’s Textile Crusader”
If you want an unusually cozy scarf or sweater made of natural fiber, merino wool or alpaca are the usual choices. But what about the guanaco,...
Listen to “Eco-Fashion’s Animal Rights Delusion”
In this exploration of the hidden stories behind materials such as wool and rayon, silk and polyester, and vegan leather, writer and sustainable...
Listen to “Women Who Embroider the Air”
On a small island near Venice, the fine art of handmade lace somehow remains alive. Our correspondent visits with the master craftswomen of...
Listen to “The Perfect Pen”
Fountain pens have always served as the quintessential combination of beauty, tradition, and dexterity. But did you know they’re also tools of...
Listen to “The Lost Art of Traditional Bow Hunting”
As interest in hunting with a bow and arrow has risen, much of the gear has gone high-tech. Meanwhile, a small band of purists like Gabriel...
Listen to “Let Tinkerbell Tinker”
As the economy’s reliance on innovation grows, the offering of toys for girls remains–well, somewhat less than innovative. Fortunately, a...
Listen to “Led by the Nose”
In a growing number of artisanal shops dotted around the globe, indie perfume artists are bottling a world of scents left untapped by commercial...
Listen to “The Soul of French Invention”
An American woodworker’s love affair with “the best” (and perhaps least-known) sculpture museum in Paris—and what the affair taught him....
Listen to “The Reed Artist”
In his quest to meet Turkey’s elusive master of the ney, our contributor spent months searching the cafes and alleys of Istanbul, ...
Listen to “Go-Go Music, with Shorty Corleone and Roy Battle: A Craftsmanship Artisan Interview”
Go-go music is a rhythm-heavy blend of funk, soul, and blues that is at the very heart of Washington, D.C.’s Black community. And while the...
Listen to “India’s Rug Saint”
Nand Kishore Chaudhary built Jaipur Rugs Co. into a runaway success by working closely with India’s poorest citizens, and by developing an...
Listen to “Greece’s Secret to Perfect Honey”
While prosperous countries like the U.S. have struggled to keep their honeybees alive, Greece continues to produce what many consider the world’s...
Listen to “The Hydraulic Genius of Shari’ah Law”
You’ve probably never heard the term “acequia,” but it describes one of the oldest methods of irrigation on the planet. Too bad American ranchers...
Listen to “The Wizard of Old Wheels”
As today’s motorcycles become more high-tech, the simplicity of a vintage bike becomes more appealing. Among the simplest are Japanese models...
Listen to “Occupy Your Bathroom”
One man’s quiet fight to save your face, your bank account, and the environment from an endless case of shaving rash....
Listen to “Is Digital Craftsmanship an Oxymoron?”
On a funky old pier along San Francisco’s waterfront, Autodesk, a world leader in digital tools for makers, runs a futuristic prototype shop that...
Listen to “Real Film Strikes Back”
Against all odds, and despite the best efforts of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, old-fashioned, analog, motion-picture film is suddenly making a...
Listen to “The Celluloid Gumshoe”
Eddie Muller has dedicated his life to finding, restoring, and re-releasing lost films of the great Film Noir era of the 1940s and ’50s. His...
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...
Listen to “The Architecture of Trust”
With only a quick glance at today’s overheated political climate—the balkanized geography between red and blue states, the bombastic former...
Listen to “A Black Entrepreneur Finds Her ‘Vegan Soul’ — in Idaho: a Craftsmanship Artisan Interview”
When Mae Gaines moved from Los Angeles, CA, to Idaho, she expected her life would be different. What she didn’t anticipate was the response...
Listen to “The New Water Alchemists”
Animals, plants, soil, and air have long collaborated to regulate our climate by stimulating “the water cycle.” They have also helped control...
Listen to “The Return of the Harmonica”
In the 1970s, Hohner, the world’s largest harmonica manufacturer, changed its flagship model, and in the process its signature sound. A few...
Listen to “The Norwegian Sweater Detective”
In a postcard-perfect valley in southern Norway, Annemor Sundbø nurtures her life’s work: old garments, paintings, and other clues to the myths...
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...
Listen to “The VW Doctor is In”
In a corrugated tin shed that somehow survived California’s massive fires in Sonoma Valley, Gary Freeman labors to keep old VW Beetles and...
Listen to “The Rawhide Artist”
Bill Black has poured his life into refining a simple piece of handmade horse gear called a hackamore. Although the device is rarely used...
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....
Listen to “The Toolbelt Masters”
With gumption, insight, and brilliant use of social media, a few guys in Virginia built an operation that makes what could be the world’s finest...
Listen to “Japan’s Gorgeous, Precarious Fishing Poles”
Japanese master craftsmen can command up to $100,000 for turning bamboo into a fishing pole. Yet, this time-honored craft is at the brink of...
Listen to “Mexico’s Master Guitar Makers”
The now iconic white guitar made famous by the Disney film “Coco” was created in Paracho, a small Mexican town where almost every shop makes...
Listen to “The Cigar Box Guitar Maker”
When a promising rock musician tired of the road and the pressure, he gave up music and got a job at a hardware store. Then one day, he had a...
Listen to “The Healing Power of ‘Bello'”
On the Northeastern coast of Italy, an unusual drug treatment center uses craftsmanship — and the strength of community — to rehabilitate some of...
Listen to “The Power of the Scribe”
Spiritual faith has long been shaped by the lettering on a religion’s sacred texts. This is particularly the case with Judaism, so we visited...
Listen to “Artisanal Homemade Bread Made Simple”
Confined to our homes during the Covid-19 quarantine, many of us have realized this is an ideal time to start baking our own bread. The idea has...
Listen to “The Bug Whisperer”
Mark Sturges doesn’t advertise — clients have to find him by word of mouth, but find him they do. He’s become a master of an agricultural art as...
Listen to “Straw Bale: The Ultra-Ecological House”
As our environmental challenges mount — from devastating wildfires to hurricanes and floods — one solution, largely ignored thus far, may lie in...
Listen to “The Bonsai Kid”
A young Oregonian believes that he can create a uniquely American form of the Japanese bonsai tree. And he is literally betting the farm on the...
Listen to “When Indigenous Women Win”
In the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, a band of determined indigenous women led the overthrow of a criminal cartel. Their victory revived the...
Listen to “The Jewelry Archaeologist”
Through years of painstaking, often combative detective work, Hugo Kohl rescued an era of early American jewelry manufacturing technology that...
Listen to “How Far Can Beer Science Go?”
Where else would you expect to find a band of techno-scientific, craft beer geeks, except on the industrial side of San Francisco, ground zero...
Listen to “The Watchman of Lausanne”
For more than six centuries, a lone figure—part guard, part human angel—has circled the bell tower every night in the Cathedral of Lausanne,...
Listen to “The Secrets of an Italian Gelato Master”
Gelato, it turns out, is a very different creature from ice cream. And there are reasons that the best gelato tastes so creamy yet somehow still...
Listen to “The Art of the Joke”
When you watch masterful stand-up comics perform, they seem just naturally hilarious. Don’t kid yourself. This is hard work—a craft like making...
Listen to “The Drought Fighter”
Could a small, controversial farmer in Northern California have found the most effective way to grow food in a warming world? With gross income...