Pictory

Across the Board ∞

Guy Okazaki, a surfboard shaper for over 30 years, learned the trade from his father and handcrafts boards out of his small shop in Venice Beach, California. He starts with a foam blank and uses routers, handsaws, and this 40-year-old Skil 100 Planer to shave down the blank. After it’s encased in fiberglass, some lucky person will go to the beach one day and catch some waves on it.

Watercraft ∞

Carefully, methodically, and very precisely, Buster Prout of Bowdoinham, Maine, constructs a gunning float, a boat used for hunting duck. This model is specific to Merrymeeting Bay. Buster Prout is the last of the bay’s gunning float builders, and for each full size boat he crafts, he creates a precise and tiny model, exactly 1/8th scale. He is a gentle man, with an artist’s hand. They are elegant crafts, and a good sculler can move the float through the rushes silently, and sneak right up on the birds. At best, a hunter might bag a limit. At worst, one spends a day in a remarkable place, in this handmade, remarkable boat.

Touch Wood ∞

Stuart Baird emigrated to Michigan from Glasgow, Scotland with his parents in 1956. His father was a wood pattern maker and his grandfather made custom furniture, and along the way, Stuart learned woodworking skills. After retiring as a master machinist in the Detroit area, he moved to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and took up woodcarving. He began with relief carvings, then moved on to carving what he loves — birds of prey. He’s shown here working with an apprentice’s piece, with a Peregrine Falcon in the background.

Indelible Ink ∞

Every year I attend the Kentuck Arts Festival in Northport, Alabama to visit Amos Kennedy, printer and showcard poster artist. He brings a half-ton printing press with him, and it is so much fun to visit with him, watch people use a printing press for the first time, listen to him greet others just like me, and to purchase more of his work.

One Step at a Time ∞

During a craft documentation tour from my college, I visited one of the small villages in central India, where the people sustain themselves by creating beautiful textiles. Some families are national award winners while some families just make do. If just the actual block by block printing seems tedious, you should see the process that goes into making the cloth ready for inking, and the process that makes it permanent. Each step is important. They start with drab looking off-white cloth, and end with yards of beautifully printed fabric.

Stringed Instrument ∞

The Krishnapuram Colony, in Madurai, Tamilnadu, India, was established in the 1950s as a Gandhian living and working center for hand weavers. Though the neighborhood has lost much of this original character, many houses do remain occupied by weavers. This family, consisting of two generations of weavers, makes fine silk saris.

Fur Trade ∞

For the past 40 years, my father has been working as a furrier in the Garment District in New York City. This neighborhood was once the heart of the fur industry, thriving with craftsman from all backgrounds and nationalities. However in the past decade, the craft of making fur coats and accessories has vanished, leaving my father as one of the last few artisans left in the Fur District. The sewing machinery, tools, and collection of coats themselves are a beautiful example of American craftsmanship.

Family Business ∞

While trekking across the hills of Vietnam, I found a small village in a valley of blossoming plum trees. I discovered the Flower Hmong people who, until recently, still hand-crafted every bit of their own clothing. Hmong textile art is still the predominant work of the community, and encompasses everything from making fabric to sewing clothes. Their signature style includes hand-embroidery of bold geometric designs in bright beautiful colors, and uses pattern to narrate folklore from Hmong history.

Woolen Memories ∞

When my 90-year-old grandmother started to lose lucidity, my mum and I gave her little tasks to do, in order for her brain to remain as active as long as possible. We pretended that I had hundreds of friends celebrating birthdays all over the world and that her kettle holders would be the only suitable present for them. She worked like a machine, knitting the colorful wool with her small hands that got older by the day. The one on the right, made when she was 95 years old, is my very favorite.

Iron On ∞

I hand-washed it and ironed it just the way she would have. She never thought much of her efforts, but my mom made an art form of everything she crafted and cleaned, including this blue gingham apron.

Top Chef ∞

Among her seven siblings, my mom is definitely the best cook. I can taste the difference in something that has been prepared by her. In this photo, she is making a type of Malay pastries. She does it with such grace in her nimble hands, and keen mind.

Blue Ribbon ∞

When their youngest child left the house, my parents finally had the time to pursue their own interests. I never would have guessed how quickly they would have purchased the neighboring farm, putting their dream to make cheese into action. But when they returned from a research trip to Italy, something went wrong.

The sudden death of my father made the dream seem impossible. But my mother felt that owning a farm left her no option but to make it work. Five years later, my mother is the head cheese maker at Cricket Creek Farm, producing award-winning cheese. Most people retire at 65, she is just getting started!

Spice of Life ∞

My family has spent a lot of time living in Pakistan, and though it’s not perfect, it’s a country of many treasures. This is a picture of my maid, Sakina, as she used two rocks to grind herbs and spices in her small and modest home. This is a method still used in homes where a mechanical grinder is a luxury and not a necessity. According to Sakina and her mother, herbs ground on a rock maintain the rich flavors that are often lost by all our machines.

Mr. Smith ∞

Once a year Greenport Village, Long Island has a festival where visitors can get a glimpse of a blacksmith at work. Here he is fashioning a hook from a longer piece of iron, which glows hot from the fire as he brings the hammer down.

Stoking the Fire ∞

The making of handmade glass beads is a very old tradition in Turkey. In this photo from Kurudere Village, men are melting glass pieces and then reforming them to make beads. Then women in the village make necklaces and bracelets from those beads. There are only three glass bead making shops in the village. Will they still be around in ten years?

Shoegazer ∞

Patrizio lives in Fermo, a little medieval town in central Italy, and has been making shoes since he was six years old. His region holds a long tradition of shoe-making, but in the last 20 years the industry has shifted to China. He is the last shoemaker in town. “So Patrizio, why do people pay so much for industrial, low-quality shoes?” I asked him. “People are stupid, would they have been smart I could have my own private airplane!” he said.

Time Honored ∞

This kind gentleman in back streets of Hyderabad, India, repaired my battered old watch for the princely sum of 10 rupees, about 20 US cents. Despite looking like he had problems with his eye sight, he had the nimble dexterity of someone half his age. A true craftsman.

Home Sweet Home ∞

When I graduated high school, my parents bought ten acres of untouched land in Texas and set out to fulfill their life-long dream of building their own home. Over the past seven years, they have managed to construct a collection of buildings, all with their own two hands. The building behind them is what they call their “closet-guest loft,” which they proudly built with reused materials for a mere $350. I always enjoy coming home to find new additions to their growing complex of buildings, excited to see what’s next on the drawing board for them.

Truck Stop ∞

Poverty forced me into greatness in the form of do-it-yourself auto repair. I bought this truck for $1600 because that’s what I had left over from student loans. I knew that one day I would have to make up for that deal, and that day came. A little research, a lot of time, and no confidence had me under the rear end of this one and a half ton vehicle. At 90% completion, an air valve snapped and sent a piece of plastic into my eye, cutting it and leaving me with a eye patch for 24 hours. Despite the nurse’s pessimism, it healed within those long 24 hours and I was able to finish. A 14-year-old fuel pump with no intention of going peacefully was finally removed and replaced. The truck started up with a soothing roar that I never heard out of her before. I was so happy, I could of left her in the driveway and floated to work.

What Lives in the Body ∞

Once a week for two years, I have sat down at a table in a natural history museum, picked up a scalpel and a pair of tweezers, and—gently, carefully, meditatively—created a study skin out of a bird, or two, or three, that has been killed by its unsuspecting flight into a window of a skyscraper. On this day I prepared a Wilson’s flycatcher (a slight, somewhat unprepossessing bird notable for being new to me and for turning out well despite being incredibly small), a Savannah sparrow, and a Gray-cheeked thrush. They were all good to me; no one’s skin tore, no one’s wings sat crookedly. It was quiet, without even the radio on to disturb the hush, and there were no visitors all day. I felt restored when I left.