Blog

Save Your Memories in the Best Scrapbooks

Scrapbooks provide the ideal opportunity for a walk down memory lane while also encouraging personal creativity. The practice of scrapbooking began in 19th-century England; it was particularly popular among those who went on the Grand Tour of Europe and wanted to preserve tokens from their travels. One avid practitioner was Mark Twain, who carried aContinue reading “Save Your Memories in the Best Scrapbooks”

Perfect Your Pottery With the Best Tool Sets for Ceramics

Pottery making requires more than just a wheel and a block of clay. To shape your vessels, imprint them with creative etched designs, and trim rims so they’re perfectly even, you’re going to need some tools. The most commonly used implements in ceramics are ribbon tools, which are used to cut away clay; ribs, forContinue reading “Perfect Your Pottery With the Best Tool Sets for Ceramics”

Achieve Amazing Feats of Clay With the Best Needle Tools for Ceramics

Necessary for etching, trimming, cutting, incising, scoring, and piercing clay, a needle tool is a must-have for any ceramicist—professional or recreational, beginner or advanced. Needle tools come in many forms. If you want to reduce hand strain, look for a product with a rubber grip, or if you want a more traditional model, go withContinue reading “Achieve Amazing Feats of Clay With the Best Needle Tools for Ceramics”

Add Luster to Your Handknits With the Best Silk and Silk-Blend Yarns

Silk is a coveted fabric for its smooth, luxurious feel. Unfortunately, it can be a difficult material to work with because of its tendency to slip and its lack of give. For those reasons, many yarns that include silk are blended with more forgiving fibers like wool. With the right combination, a silk-blend yarn canContinue reading “Add Luster to Your Handknits With the Best Silk and Silk-Blend Yarns”

Get a Grip With the Best Needle-Nose Pliers

For many artists and hobbyists, there comes a time when a project demands close-in work with difficult-to-manage materials. Manipulating jewelry wire, for example, or monofilament line by hand can be frustratingly hard to do. That’s when having a pair of needle-nose pliers (also called long-nose pliers) becomes essential. As the name implies, this tool tapersContinue reading “Get a Grip With the Best Needle-Nose Pliers”

Why We Don’t Make Pencil Sharpeners

After we started selling pencils designed for woodworking, several customers asked why don’t make a pencil sharpener as well.  Two words: Mobius+Ruppert. These German-made sharpeners are exactly what we would make. They are brass, nicely machined and you can purchase replacement blades so the tool will last a lifetime. And the price is great, fromContinue reading “Why We Don’t Make Pencil Sharpeners”

Required Reading

This survivor of the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School says his own father has been indoctrinated by QAnon conspiracies about the tragedy. David Gilbert corroborated the story, first posted on a Reddit channel for family members and friends of QAnon supporters. It’s heartbreaking: […] Bill also had to deal with his father’s dailyContinue reading “Required Reading”

Jon Pylypchuk’s Chorus of Loss

In 2020, as COVID-19 death tolls rose exponentially worldwide, Jon Pylypchuk faced a separate loss, the unexpected death of a close friend, unrelated to COVID. He responded by making ghosts. For several months Pylypchuk fashioned men’s briefs, ski masks, socks, and other clothing and fabric scraps into rudimentary faces (pareidolia, a recurring motif in hisContinue reading “Jon Pylypchuk’s Chorus of Loss”

An Asian Artist’s Isolation in New York

I first met Yuri Yuan in June 2018 at the opening of Alex Katz–Grass and Trees at Gray Warehouse in Chicago. I was there because I had written the catalogue essay and was invited to be in a conversation with Ivy Wilson about the work. The next time I talked to Yuan was this pastContinue reading “An Asian Artist’s Isolation in New York”

A Photographer Captures the Collective Fatigue of the Welfare State

It has been well over 30 years since Margaret Thatcher declared that society does not exist; that in fact, only individuals and their families do. Thatcher’s words, spoken in 1987, have since taken on a definitive, almost epochal, place in recent history (and appropriately so), as they neatly sum up the rationality of neoliberal governanceContinue reading “A Photographer Captures the Collective Fatigue of the Welfare State”