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Preserving Traditional Crafts – a conversation with Carl Klein.
18 Plays1 month ago
Carl Klein has the travel bug. Rather than simply collecting destinations Carl is an adventurer who spends time living off the usual tourist routes, immersing himself in local communities and cultures
As those communities developed confidence in him, they started to share their joys and fears with Carl. Carl learnt that one of the fears of local crafts people was that they worried that they would be the last practitioner of their craft.
The problem is that craft-based work is not as interesting to young people as an office job.
Carl decided that with access to a wider market the crafts the commercial viability and profitability of those crafts would increase. Then more young people might be interested in a craft-based career.
Carl decided that he could help by creating documentariesto share his fascination with the crafts. He also added a retail opportunity so that people who shared his enthusiasm could have unique han- crafted products in their home.
is an adventurer. Fibre art is any fine art that uses natural or synthetic fibre, fabric or yarn to create an item that can be displayed, used or worn.
Rest and Recreation is made on Zencastr because it is an all-in-one podcasting platform, that really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Travel
Each country, region, and culture, has its own crafts. If you want to travel the world exploring craft, the best way to make your travel arrangements is by joining The Ultimate Travel Club, because that is where you will get trade prices on flights, hotels, and package holidays.
Use offer code ABEC79 to receive a discount on your membership fee.
You can find out more about both Michael Millward, and Carl Klein at Abeceder.co.uk .
Proactive Positive Ageing.
Participating in a craft has significant health benefits.
When it comes to health it’s a good idea to know the risks early so that you can take appropriate actions to maintain good health, so we recommend The Annual Health Test from York Test which covers 39 different health markers.
Access York Test and use this discount code ABECEDER2.
Matchmaker.fm
Thank you to the team at Matchmaker.fm introducing me to Carl. Matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made. Use our offer code MILW10 for a discount on membership.
Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on Rest and Recreation, please contact us using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
We recommend that potential guests take one of the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abeceder is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think!
Thank you to you for listening.
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Transcript
Introduction to Rest and Recreation Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abysida. I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysida.
Zencastr's Role in Podcasting
00:00:18
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, Rest and Recreation is made on Zencastr. Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then share it on all of the major platforms like Spotify, Amazon, Apple, and Google.
00:00:38
Speaker
It really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting with Zencaster, visit zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysida.
00:00:51
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencastr is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:06
Speaker
As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Guest Introduction: Carl Klein
00:01:14
Speaker
Today's Rest and Recreation guest is Carl Klein from Lost Canyon Imports.
00:01:21
Speaker
Carl is based in Portland, Oregon, United States, and as the name suggests, Lost Canyon Imports does a lot of importing, so Carl travels the world discovering what to import.
00:01:36
Speaker
So I'll have to share details of the Ultimate Travel Club with him, then he'll be able to access trade prices on flights and hotels. There is a link and a membership discount code in the description.
Carl Klein's Journey and Business Origins
00:01:50
Speaker
yeah Hello, Carl. Hey, how are you doing? I am doing very, very well today. We have had all four seasons in one day here. It's been wet, it's been sunny, it's been cold, it's been warm, and we've just finished with a hailstorm and now got bright sunshine. so it's Oh boy, that that reminds me of DC where I was based out of up until a couple of months ago.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, I've been there. The weather there can be very changeable. Yes, yeah. Please could we start by you telling us a little bit about who Carl Klein is? Yeah, sure.
00:02:24
Speaker
So, boy, how to how to sum this up. So, I've done a lot of travel in
Founding Lost Canyon Imports
00:02:30
Speaker
my life. I think a lot of that started when I dropped out of college my first time around and hopped on a bicycle, and made my way down to Mexico, ah ditched the bike because I didn't want to ride through the desert, but pretty much took every mode of transit other than plane down to Bogota, Colombia over the next nine months.
00:02:50
Speaker
And since then, i sort of caught the travel bug. and been hopping around the globe a lot, ended up finishing college and my master's degree in international development.
00:03:02
Speaker
And after after I got back from doing my grad degree, COVID hit and did a little work in some COVID hospitals. I was trying to figure out what the next stage of my life was going to look like and decided to sort of chase a dream a little bit and see if I could do some work helping out traditional crafts around the world.
00:03:23
Speaker
So that's where Lost Canyon Imports came from. And for the last couple of years, I've been working
Name and Inspiration of Lost Canyon Imports
00:03:29
Speaker
on that. Why the name Lost Canyon Imports? So the name was tricky. I've been looking for something to really capture the feeling of it, the the sense of adventure and wonder in these incredible crafts and these incredible traditions around the world. um And at the same time, I wanted to make sure it wasn't a name that was too closely tied to a specific place.
00:03:56
Speaker
So it was really about trying to find the name that would work for that. And it ended up getting time where I needed to pull the trigger on getting a website and business cards and everything.
00:04:10
Speaker
um And that name had sort of been on the top of the list of options and just decided to roll with it. So that's that's pretty much it. It's not the most inspiring name story.
00:04:21
Speaker
No, but it's an interesting one. that yeah When I saw it, I thought about the low losing crafts, the lost crafts that the world is losing, and then the canyon that was like a special place you can and go into. Worlds can be isolated within canyons, was the impression it gave me.
00:04:41
Speaker
i've I've sort of come to associate it in my mind with this incredible spot in southern Colombia called Sibondoy. um And it's it's this it's not a valley. um It's not a canyon. It's more of this big valley that's maybe 10, 12 miles across.
00:04:57
Speaker
And it's just this bowl of flat plains surrounded by steep peaks. And in the winters there, when it's really cloudy, the clouds come down below the mountaintops.
00:05:08
Speaker
So all you can see is this bowl of gorgeous farmland and jungle um with peaks that sort of rise up around it into the clouds. And you're just sealed off in this tiny space in the middle of the mountains. And it's just gorgeous.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yes, one those sorts of places, I suppose, that bit like when I visited the Sahara or other deserts or the Rockies, the big mountain ranges, where you you become almost very much aware of just how small and insignificant we are as as individual human beings in the in the greater nature.
00:05:44
Speaker
world ah of nature. There's huge mountains, great expanses of of desert, and there we are, this little dot in the middle of it. Yeah, that that sublime feeling is really one of the things that I love most about being outdoors and And those special places in nature that that really resonate. yeah Yeah. It brings it back, just talking about it can bring back all sorts of various different memories. But let's talk about what Lost Canyon Imports does. You've you've mentioned about this dream you have of of working with craftspeople around the world. what What do you do? How does it all come together?
Mission to Support Artisans Globally
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah. So um in in my time living and working abroad, I started to see a pattern of all these incredible traditions that were that were sort of dying out. You often had older craftsmen that were still practicing, but not finding apprentices and young people in the community to take up ah their work and their traditions.
00:06:43
Speaker
And so i realized that it it would be really helpful to them to have a bigger market, to have a way to to make money from doing these things that were so important to them um because the communities around them are often small um and there's a lot of poverty in these places. And it's just hard for them to support themselves um if they're only selling in their backyard um So I thought it would be cool to to give it a shot to try and bring things up here um and then bring the money back there and give them a way to sell to a wider audience.
00:07:21
Speaker
So got the idea of doing this and going down and filming them, filming their process, um talking to them about what the culture was behind it and what all of it meant to them.
00:07:33
Speaker
And the combination of that is just so much fun for me, is to go experience that, to meet with them, to see them just watching people with so much skill work with their hands.
00:07:46
Speaker
is and incredible experience. I know what you mean. It's like something that is handmade by someone one who has a skill to make it rather than just throw it together.
00:07:58
Speaker
yeah is There's something special about an item. And I think yeah we we live in ah and a consumer world. We live in a throwaway world. We live in a fast fashion world where items in so in many ways have less value.
00:08:16
Speaker
yeah You pay to buy it and then you take it home. And there's no real meaning behind things either. And that's yeah that's something that's so special special for me is getting a window into how a different culture sees things and interprets things and sort of quizzing them about, hey, what does what do these symbols mean?
00:08:36
Speaker
Where does that come from in your culture? And how are you reinterpreting that history and that culture in this particular piece of art? yeah um And just finding new ways to, oh, you know I never really thought of it that way, but that's a really cool connection that you're making between these aspects of nature or um finding these lines or patterns in things that I've seen every day but um have been interpreted in a completely different way in another part of the world.
00:09:07
Speaker
Because in many ways, I suppose the items that people who are craftspeople make within a community are ways of explaining the community, explaining the different rules, explaining rituals, ceremonies, and history of that community.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, distilling distilling stories, distilling culture into sort of a visual language ah that people within the community understand. Yeah. And then reinterpreting that language um in specific pieces that they're making.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah. And I suppose as well that instead of having a lot of something because it's cheap and it's mass produced, which makes it cheap,
00:09:50
Speaker
If you have something that has been made by a craftsperson and you know as a result of it being made by hand by a particular craftsperson that there is a great big huge chance that what you've got is the only one of that in the entire world.
00:10:12
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. um Everything that I've got is is one of a kind and it's it's a bit of a struggle um figuring out how to sell things, especially with an online marketplace.
Challenges of Selling Handcrafted Items Online
00:10:23
Speaker
um how do you How do you categorize things? How do you define things in a way that allows you to set up sort of a site architecture. And that's sort of a struggle that we're still working on.
00:10:35
Speaker
But it's it's so cool seeing each individual piece, especially when I'm down there um in there in their workshops and in their studios um looking at these things and watching them build them.
00:10:48
Speaker
When you say watching them build them and and create crafts, I'm thinking that one of things that makes something a craft is the complexity that's involved and there can, the different levels of complexity, but what would be the most complex craft that you have seen on all your various different travels?
00:11:08
Speaker
um it's It's always a tough one because there's so many different techniques and skills and styles that go into things. Let's see here. I think some of the stuff that's in in Pasto, I actually just came back from that city ah yesterday.
00:11:26
Speaker
But there's a couple of crafts there that involve actually multiple artisans, multiple um craft communities coming together to build different pieces of things. um And so you've got tamo de pasto where you have a community of woodworkers that build sort of an underlying form.
00:11:45
Speaker
um So they'll carve a box or they'll carve an animal out of wood. um And then they'll ah hand that over to another set of artisans that then puts decoration on top.
00:11:56
Speaker
So for like tamo de pasto, they take the straw from the wheat or the barley harvest. And a completely different set of artisans will then take that straw, pick out the ones that don't have flaws in them, dye them in these big cauldrons over an open fire.
00:12:13
Speaker
And then once that straw dried, it'll be it'll be slit open so it's flat. And then another artist will take a razor or a small knife, and carve out little slices or shave off little pieces of that straw and lay it down in patterns on top of the woodwork.
00:12:31
Speaker
So you get these fine lines or little sheets um laid down almost like a mosaic, but in a three-dimensional mosaic. So where a traditional meal mosaic, you just have ah flat plane and specific pieces of tile getting laid together.
00:12:46
Speaker
With this, you have one strip being laid over another strip to form patterns or to form textures. And that's just it's really incredible to watch. Even the thought of it, I know I haven't got the patience to do it.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, and the eyeset, just to be able to see these very fine strands of straw. um and to get that fine hand motion of just getting exactly the curvature that they want when they're laying it down on the wood.
00:13:15
Speaker
It's pretty impressive. So it's turning something that is long and thin and designed to move in the wind as a piece of straw.
00:13:27
Speaker
And someone harvests that, then someone assesses whether the piece of straw is good enough to be used in the craft or whether it's going to go for animal feed or bedding.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which is must take us take us a skill and and a level of patience that I just don't have. i mean And i I mean, I think that's a global issue, to be honest with you. I i always ask the artisans, what what issues are you having? What are your biggest problems these days?
00:14:02
Speaker
And the only thing that they always answer is is patience. um I think there's a there's a sense of being rushed and a need to complete things quickly and get through things in the modern world.
00:14:16
Speaker
And I don't think that's just an us problem. I think it's universal right now. yeah But it's learning to do these crafts and- Well, learning to do them will take time as well, won't It's like, it's not something you do- Yes. Oh, yeah. and it takes It takes a lifetime to really- Everybody's got something new they can learn, but they're developing their skill, their expertise over many years.
00:14:43
Speaker
And it's constantly developing, I should imagine. But even that, yeah, I ah get exactly what you mean. Like the Western world has become impatient and wants things now. Yeah.
00:14:55
Speaker
rather than waiting to to learn something, waiting to develop something. And i suppose when we lose our own patience, we start to think about other people who have the patience, and but we still want the item now. We want it now.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah. Which then, of course, means, so that, and' it's got a Spanish name, which I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce. but ah We could just call it Temo.
00:15:23
Speaker
Temo, right. um Because the the last part of it, the De Pasto, is just the region that it's from, basically. Right. Okay. So that's something that takes a an awful long time to develop
Crafting Patience in a Fast-Paced World
00:15:35
Speaker
the skills to be able to do. And then each stage of it seems to require a lot of patience and a lot of skill.
00:15:41
Speaker
Even the dyeing of the straw, I think, is one of those you either know how long to have it in the vat for or you don't. And you can change the color, obviously, by the the length of time it's in there.
00:15:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. but Yeah. yeah Yeah. I wouldn't suggest that somebody start doing that with their weekly grass cuttings from home. ah but I would love to see someone try though. That would that would be fun. It would be. But on the on the idea of trying a craft,
00:16:13
Speaker
and Is there a craft that you've seen where you think that could become the next thing that Martha Stewart or one of these home improvement lifestyle type people is talking about and and demonstrating on their on the satellite cable YouTube channel?
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah. um I mean, I've i've got to Beautiful picture behind me that I picked up actually on my on my very first trip in Mexico. I think it it might even be the first piece of traditional art that I ever acquired.
00:16:42
Speaker
um But it's it's this gorgeous painting, but it's not made with paint. It's what they've done is they've taken a big piece of wood um And they've covered it with beeswax.
00:16:55
Speaker
And then to get the image on it, they take thin thin fibers, little threads of colored wool, and they lay them into the beeswax to sort of build up this image.
00:17:09
Speaker
And it's this vibrant sort of electric colored peyote trip fueled dream of an image of deer and other animals and shaman.
00:17:21
Speaker
And I think that would actually be something that you could at least technically start without a ton of skill. Getting to the to the level of the people that have made this one would take quite a while, but simply starting it, just getting some wax and maybe a ah maybe a piece of board and then laying string in, that process by itself, um you could you could probably start that today.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yes. yeah If you haven't got access to beeswax, then you perhaps use glue as well. That might work. um I think one of the advantages of wax is being able to reheat it.
00:17:56
Speaker
yeah And you could you could probably go down to your local hobby store or something and just pick up um a little bit of natural wax or something um Just get a little warm and pour it onto trying to think what sort of board would be best. But, you know, um and then you could always get it like a hairdryer or something and rewarm it.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Just to to keep working on it. But I could I could see that being something that you could. throw together in in an hour or so and then just start knocking away at it with all your different yeah little colored threads.
00:18:28
Speaker
think that would be a lot of fun. ah Get a natural beeswax candle and melt that. Yeah, absolutely. smells delightful too. You can get started on these things. Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
I think from a certain extent, the more people that there are who are making things, understanding the processes that are involved will lead to more interest in yeah the masters of those crafts and the work that they can do they can create.
00:18:55
Speaker
You learn how difficult it is. And it it helps you see what's inside them as well because it's i don't I don't have a lot of experience. I'm absolutely not a master in anything, but I have dabbled in a number of things.
00:19:09
Speaker
And just taking a little bit of time to practice and learn the techniques lets you look more closely and see, oh, this is how they did that. This is the technique that that required. And it really, really gives you more appreciation for the works themselves. Yeah.
00:19:24
Speaker
I can imagine as well that when you focus on something that takes you away from all of the stresses and strains of everyday Western life, that getting involved in a craft must also be very good for your well-being.
00:19:40
Speaker
I would imagine so. there's a I need to sit down and think about the right word to use for this because a lot of them have strong connotations, but there's there's almost ah a meditative state, a um A state of mind i get in when I'm practicing something like that where your mind is not cluttered. You're not constantly having thoughts popping in and out of your head. You're you're focused and it's almost like the tempo of mental activity slows down. And that's a very...
00:20:11
Speaker
Very nice feeling to have um off and on throughout the day. Yes, I can imagine. And even just talking about it makes me sort relax a little bit because you know that when you are when you're focused on something and you want to get that one particular thing right,
00:20:30
Speaker
then it does mean that your mind sort of like clears. it Your mind focuses on what you want it to focus. And all your objectives then are in this very narrow space. It's not like, oh, I'm waiting for this email or I need to get back to this person.
00:20:46
Speaker
or this, that, and the other thing. All of your objectives are within that one piece that you're trying to work on and get just right. Yes. In terms of getting just that one piece right and all of these various different unique items that you have, how can people find out more?
Educating on Traditional Crafts
00:21:03
Speaker
Where can the people see them? Yeah. um So I actually make mini documentaries about these crafts and the traditions behind them. um So you can go to YouTube and go to my channel, Lost Canyon Imports, um and see I've got a couple of videos up already.
00:21:18
Speaker
um And you can also see the full range of stuff that I've got if you go to lostcanyonimports.com. um And I've got some articles up, and I'm trying to get more up every week or two on these traditions and sort of how to interpret the symbology behind them and the cultures behind them as well.
00:21:35
Speaker
um And if you just want to look at pictures of this stuff, because it's it's gorgeous. But from what you're saying, it's not just a case of, oh, buy this, buy that. It's a case of what you're looking to do, part of your dream is the education of people who ah aren't aware of these crafts, educating people about them yeah so that they can, whether they buy them or not, it's about appreciating the skills, the crafts that do exist in the world and not things that we really want to be losing.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah. And there's a couple of different pieces that are behind that as well. Like one thing, it's just a deeper appreciation for it if you understand what's behind it um culturally and technically.
00:22:17
Speaker
um It's also, i'm i'm trying to fight, obviously this is inherently a commodification of the craft itself, but I'm trying to mount to avoid making it a pure commodity. I'm trying to find a way to as best as possible um maintain the cultural value and the reason that they're making them in the first place.
00:22:39
Speaker
And so educating people and making sure that the end consumer understands what it is and why it is, is is a part of that and not making it simply you know something that just gets cranked out and loses its meaning over time. Yeah.
00:22:52
Speaker
I think that, yeah, but I understand that. Thank you so much for helping me make such an interesting episode of Rest and Recreation. It's been great. Thank you very much. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. Thank you.
00:23:06
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida. And in this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Carl Klein from Lost Canyon Imports.
00:23:19
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us at abeceda.co.uk. There's a link in the description. If you're listening to rest and recreation in a remote place, like those that Carl visits in order to discover these crafts, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
00:23:40
Speaker
So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that we take to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:23:55
Speaker
If you have liked this episode of Rest and Recreation, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
00:24:08
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.