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Crafting Across Canada

Aug. 1, 2009
Sarah Beck is painting glaze on one of her whimsical sculpted puffins and chatting with us at the same time. "I'm a fiddler as well as a potter," she tells us.

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Sarah Beck is painting glaze on one of her whimsical sculpted puffins and chatting with us at the same time. "I'm a fiddler as well as a potter," she tells us. She turns to her husband, Paul Cranford, who's sitting next to her, working on his computer. "Why don't you play something for them?" she suggests.

And that's how my husband and I find ourselves enjoying an impromptu ceilidh [pronounced kay-lee], a Scottish fiddling party.

We're crafting the roads of Canada — talking to craftspeople, learning about their crafts, their life and the communities of which they're a part.

Talking about crafts inevitably leads to talking about place. We learn what provided the inspiration for the artistic creations, about the locally available materials and about the economy that supports the craftsperson's work. Often the conversation ranges far beyond that and gives us surprising glimpses into ways of life that we'd known nothing about.