These days, it seems like there are machines to do just about everything. Cook meals, animate movies, build cars. But that doesn’t mean the art of doing things the old-fashioned way?completely by hand?has disappeared. If you want proof, check out these sites.
Sure, you can create all kinds of amazing effects with graphics programs, but artist Julian Beever doesn’t need anything more complicated than a patch of sidewalk and a box of colours. Oh, and a whole lot of talent.
Handmade Candy Canes at Disneyland
This video could probably even bring a smile to the Grinch’s face?and it will likely tempt your sweet tooth as the candy-cane makers at Disneyland demonstrate making the treats the old-fashioned way. So That’s how they get the stripes in them!
Vasile Gliga is a master violin maker who takes the idea of handmade to a whole new level: selecting the tree, cutting the wood, planing, chiselling, and sanding every inch by hand.
If the sight of big-box stores overflowing with cheaply made, disposable stuff makes you cringe, you’ll want to feast your eyes on this clip from the documentary Handmade Nation. Filmmaker Faythe Levine travelled more than ?19,000 miles to document the new wave of craft in America.?
This CBC Archives site offers several interesting clips of artisans who, even as far back as the Victorian Age, railed against the ?dehumanizing? effects of mass production. The profiles cover English poet William Morris, lifelong potter Michael Cardew, Innu ?tea dolls,? and several others.