New audio story: "The Cowboy Folklorist"
Songster and storyteller Andy Hedges is compiling a rich, unique audio archive of cowboy music and poetry—and bringing the legends of the genre together on CD and stage.
Dear Friends,
We’re back from our holiday hiatus with a fun new audio piece that was based on one of our most popular short articles from last year. But first, I want to tell you about the new series of audio shorts that we’ll be launching here on Substack next week—exclusively for paid subscribers.
“The Secrets of Mastery” will be a series of edited conversations with intriguing artisans, innovators, and other pioneers about what it takes to master their craft. In addition to featuring traditional artisans, like master woodworkers and potters, we will gather insights from writers and editors, scientists and farmers, lawyers and judges, and myriad others who apply craftsmanship’s principles of uncompromising excellence to their own callings. Many of these will be very brief—just 5 to 10 minutes long—and focused on a single idea, principle, or challenge. The full interviews will follow separately.
I hope you’ll consider subscribing today. For just $6/month or $60/year, paid subscribers will get early access to “The Secrets of Mastery,” along with other special features we have in the works, starting next Friday.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy our new audio version of “The Cowboy Folklorist,” written and photographed by Meredith Lawrence, and narrated by Göran Norquist. It features musical clips from some of the cowboy legends featured in the story, and it’s now available on YouTube or wherever you like to get your podcasts. You can also read the original story on our website.
While we add this paid feature to our offerings, we will continue, as long promised, to release occasional new pieces that will be available to everyone without charge. For now, our Fall issue on “The Art of Repair” remains on our front pages, and of course, our full multimedia archive of back issues is still accessible free of charge on the site.
We welcome your thoughts via email, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Thank you for reading and sharing our stories, for donating to our cause as you can, and for being such a loyal part of the Craftsmanship community.
Happy New Year,
Todd Oppenheimer
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Craftsmanship Magazine
Fall 2023: The Art of Repair
In a culture addicted to novelty and fast profits, the humble art of repair has declined almost to the point of extinction. But it’s not too late: In this issue, we’ll delve into the history of planned obsolescence and the reemerging ethos of restoration. From the patient hands of watchmakers, piano restoration experts, and veteran appliance repairmen, to the story of a young French woman who got her country to ban planned obsolescence, we’ll explore what it really means to create, maintain—and truly value—a world built to last.
