June/July 2008

"We have this incredible opportunity in cities for the bicycle to be a realistic and practical form of transportation-fast, easy, convenient, fun," says 34-year-old Ezra Caldwell, whose custom bike-building business, Fast Boy Cycles, in New York City, offers both a joyful ride and a thing of beauty.

Edited by Dean and Geraldine Schwarz
South Bear Press
Decorah, Iowa
$75

Her two sons were nearly grown and she'd done 25 years of solo studio work, so the artist Rebecca Cross decided to do something "more engaged with the world." In 2006 she opened Cross MacKenzie Ceramic Arts in Washington, D.C.

Works Gallery
Ron Meyers
May 2-June 15, 2008
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I've always thought of architecture as one of the great American crafts. As a former editor of the design magazine Dwell, where we explored almost every feasible iteration of prefabricated architecture, I was continually amazed at how stubborn the architectural process was; it just seemed to innately reject industrialization.

Laurel Porcari sculpts architectural glass in her New Orleans studio. Glass requires technique and some heavy lifting. It is a hot, physically demanding process. Porcari embeds drawings and textures in the medium. Asked to describe the kiln-formed works, she speaks conceptually about mapping and flow, about scale and place.

Craft has become part of the vibrant cultural mix that makes Western Massachusetts such a hub of activity for residents and visitors alike.