#artisans

#artisans

Textiles are a window into the communities that created them, with every motif and line signalling a different memory, tradition or identity. Often seen as folk art, these pieces of embroidery and weaving bring together dozens of narrative threads, from Japan to South America. But nowhere is it more fraught with meaning than in Palestine.

If there's an earthquake? You'll need a bolillo pa'l susto (a bread roll to calm the nerves). Constructing your Day of the Dead altar? Make sure there's a sugary, orange-flavored pan de muerto on there to guide your loved ones back to the land of the living. And lest we forget the rosca de reyes-oval-shaped sweet bread topped with jellies and dried fruits that's served on Kings' Day (January 6) and contains hidden baby Jesus figurines.

Baqiao bridges, including the nearby Shisanba Bridge, typically appear in areas where the difference between river level and embankment is relatively small. Their upstream piers are shaped like tapered spindles with slightly raised tips, creating a distinctive structural profile. Stone slabs span between the piers, forming a bridge deck assembled through interlocking construction methods.

The Center for Craft is now accepting applications for the 2026 Craft Archive Fellowship, offering four $5,000 awards to support research on underrepresented craft histories in the United States.

It is not about reproducing the past but about engaging in dialogue with it. We apply the same level of care and rigor to all pieces. Many of our utilitarian pieces have a strong sculptural quality, and several of the more artistic works originate from everyday forms and functions. We do not establish rigid boundaries between these categories; all are part of the same vision.

The Irish government will give 2,000 artists unrestricted weekly stipends in a program officials described as a "recognition, at government level, of the important role of the arts in Irish society." After a successful three-year pilot, the Irish government made its basic income program for artists permanent. Similar pilots have been launched here in the United States, but they're supported primarily by the nonprofit sector.

Country of origin labeling became mandatory on all international products entering the United States in 2009. The goal was to ensure American consumers knew where the products they were buying came from, enabling shoppers to make informed buying decisions. These products include everything from Mexican avocados to French wine to pasta from Italy, with the latter thankfully safe from recent U.S. tariffs. However, does the location a product comes from actually matter?

I thought retirement would be about slowing down, but this gives me more energy than my teaching job ever did.

Long before they became destination stops, farm shops were practical lifelines in Cornwall; places where farming families sold what they reared, grew or made, and where local communities stocked their pantries. In a county shaped by smallholdings, dairy herds and mixed farms, the connection between land and table has always been close - and still, today, hyper-local food is something Cornwall does exceptionally well.

The advertising industry has always been in the business of making things, such as the OOH billboard, the 30-second spot, the snappy social post, the standard website: final, finite assets polished and pushed into the world. Agencies were paid, often by the hour, for producing final versions of these things and then moved on to the next project. Even with generative AI entering the picture, much of the conversation remains focused on making those same things faster or cheaper.

Visually striking and intricately crafted, the traditional armour and weaponry of the Kiribati islands in the Pacific Ocean were built from coconut fibre, human hair, sharks' teeth and porcupine fish. Yet, fearsome and lethal as these objects were, the people of this remote archipelago weren't especially warlike, as British colonists had long assumed, but were instead part of a ritualised style of combat intended to keep violence between clashing groups to a minimum.

Last summer, I found myself in Venice during peak tourist season. The crowds were suffocating. Every piazza felt like a theme park, every restaurant seemed designed for Instagram rather than actual dining. Standing on the Rialto Bridge, packed shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other visitors, I couldn't help but wonder: is this really Italy? That question stayed with me long after I returned to London.

Traveller check into hotels for easy access to historical Mayan sites and the cenotes beyond, with ambles through colourful squares and late, balmy nights digesting feasts over tequila tipples. Between cultural excursions and natural wonders, however, there's much to be said for the artisans in these parts. From crafted perfumes to handmade chocolates, these are the gifts and trinkets to make space for in your luggage.

The Rural Cut places vintage fashion in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, among vineyards, open fields, and the animals that inhabit the land. As a Beirut-based stylist, I worked with a fully Lebanese team to create a shoot that feels authentic, where each garment and every frame reflects the textures, history, and rhythm of the rural landscape. Photography by Angele Basile / Instagram: @angelebasile Styling by Rinad Saad / Instagram: @rinaaaaddd

The U.S. spirits landscape has evolved far beyond the recognition of simply being the birthplace of bourbon. In recent years, we've seen a transformation in both the quality and individuality that the country's craft distilleries have been able to produce. While previous decades were dominated by the big-name distilleries, far more awards are going to craft distillers who have mastered the art of producing high-quality whiskeys, rums, gins, and more.

Tons upon tons of these single-use plastics end up in landfills or even floating in the ocean. Spanish design firm PET Lamp set out give another purpose to these otherwise short-lived materials. Partnering with artisans in communities from Chile to Ethiopia to Australia, the company celebrates both Indigeneity and sustainability, drawing upon time-honored global craft traditions while supporting local economies and recycling discarded materials.

Tattoos and fermentation rarely appear in the same conversation, yet across the world, they share a quiet kinship. Both are practices of transformation, crafts that reshape raw material over time through care and relationships to the land, the spiritual, and the community. Tattooing inscribes identity and ancestry onto skin, while fermentation preserves, nourishes, and binds communities through shared taste and ritual. Both create change, brewing something more than themselves through embodied knowledge passed between generations.

From a single material, a Hyderabad-based design studio creates a wide range of site-specific installations, furnishings, and decor. It's all in the name of the firm, The Wicker Story, which was founded in 2019 by architect Priyanka Narula. Capable of being formed into everything from abstract constructions to functional objects, the natural material lends itself a huge variety of pieces that vary in size and complexity.

Small businesses operating in niche sectors often face a paradox: projects become increasingly complex and large-scale, while the company's structure and resources remain at the level of a small, independent workshop. This is especially evident in architectural offices, design studios, creative agencies, and workshops working with unique physical objects. A church woodcarving workshop performing a full cycle of work on the creation of iconostases and interior ensembles for churches serves as a representative case.