Skateboards to Kristine and Clover - Handmade items

Kristine and Clover each sent me a fun and interesting article. They are not regular exchangers - but I had that stack of orange envelopes - and figured I would send a snail mail thank you. I luv-luv-luv how Kristine's turned out. It just screams skateboard and graffiti. Sadly - that was the last stamp in that color. Clover's is disappointing - it needs some black on her name - but then it would be too bold for the stamp. I wish I had done her address in white -- that would have been perfect. Or maybe it just needed some bolder white on the name - but where? Grrrr

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As promised, I am not going to keep jabbering about the glyphs - instead we will return to one of my favorite surfing topics - how things are made. And the more tedious and complicated, the better.

This fairly long video features 5 things, made by master-makers - in Japan. The first one is a briefcase and it did not hold my attention - I skipped to the end and it was lovely. I think I lost interest because it hurt my fingers just to watch the process. 

The second item is a tiny little cloisonné vase. I watched the whole thing because I took metal smithing in college and watched more advanced students doing cloisonné and it looked crazy-difficult. Further clicking revealed how many hours it took to make the vase - 600-700 - something like that....

The third item is a calligraphy brush - and I'm warning you -- it is the most tedious process - and the only thing that kept me watching it was that after a certain point - I was curious. I was sure that at some point he would stop with the combing and flipping. But no -- it just kept going --- the link to buy a brush was through Spotify - and I couldn't make it work - but did a search to see how much the best calligraphy brushes cost - $1,000.

The fourth item, a bow, was of no interest whatsoever. And the fifth was a little silver cup - which I enjoyed - because I had seen the same process while in college and it stuck with me that there is a level of patience that I cannot even comprehend. 

The cost for these items - in the thousands - seems high - until you divide it by the number of hours it takes to make the items - and then it seems incredible that they cost so little. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0itxeMKC3Uc

$3,000 bamboo briefcase.