At Resole, his little shop in Berkeley, Thomas Wandall crafts finely made bespoke leather shoes and sandals and keeps an ancient art alive.
Berkeley artisans
Sara Strong continues her family’s woodworking legacy
As a young child, Strong spent Sundays at her grandfather’s side, watching and learning as he worked in his wood shop.
Potter Sarah Kersten: Ceramic pieces tell stories
“The way a ceramic piece comes into being is a really nice arc,” says the Berkeley potter. “And I think people also love how when the story is finished they can hold and use these things.”
Mandy Aftel: A world master of artisan perfume
Mandy Aftel in her Berkeley garden. Photo: Melati Citrawireja Mandy Aftel’s love of perfume is all-encompassing. This verve is apparent in her immaculate collection of 19th-century books on perfumery that fill the nooks of her workspace in North Berkeley. Or, in the way she tends to her rose garden — plants carefully chosen and imported from Turkey — the […]
Alice Rosenthal: Expert beekeeper, swarm catcher
The local beekeeper is an expert in both beekeeping history and the complexities behind how hives function — Rosenthal truly is a bee whisperer.
A visit with East Bay textile whisperer Amy Keefer
Keefer working on an embroidery project. Photo: Melati Citrawireja This is the fifth article in our series on expert craftspeople in Berkeley, written and photographed by Melati Citrawireja, a summer 2015 photography intern for Berkeleyside. Don’t miss her stories on St. Hieronymus Press, the workspace of David Lance Goines; Klaus-Ullrich Rötzscher and the Pettingell Book Bindery; coppersmith Audel Davis; and […]
Deepa Natarajan: Ethnobotanist and natural fabric dyer
Deepa and Loka admire their young fig tree. Photo: Melati Citrawireja Deepa picks violas to pound into cloth. Photo: Melati Citrawireja In the fourth part of a series on expert craftspeople in Berkeley, Melati Citrawireja, who was a photography intern with Berkeleyside in summer 2015, visits Deepa Natarajan, a natural fabric dyer and ethnobotanist. (Read Citrawireja’s stories on Klaus-Ullrich […]
Audel Davis continues the Arts and Crafts tradition through his coppersmithing art
Davis in his workshop. Photo: Melati Citrawireja In the third part of a series on expert craftspeople in Berkeley, Melati Citrawireja, who was a photography intern with Berkeleyside this summer, visits coppersmith Audel Davis. (Read Citrawireja’s first story on Klaus-Ullrich Rötzscher and the Pettingell Book Bindery, and her second on St. Hieronymus Press, the workspace of David Lance Goines.) Audel Davis […]
A visit with David Goines: Berkeley’s legendary letterpress printer and lithographer
David Goines in his Berkeley workshop. Photo: Melati Citrawireja In the second of a three-part series on expert craftspeople in Berkeley, Melati Citrawireja, a summer 2015 photography intern for Berkeleyside, visits St. Hieronymus Press, the workspace of David Lance Goines. (Read Citrawireja’s first story on Klaus-Ullrich Rötzscher and the Pettingell Book Bindery.) You may recognize David Goines by his distinctive […]