Meet Your Maker

During the holiday season, it feels like more and more consumers are skipping the department stores and opting for handcrafted goods instead. Ben Brewer (James Madison University) says this current “third wave” craft renaissance we’re experiencing is tied to politics. And: We visit mOb, an innovative design studio at Virginia Commonwealth University, where students in the disciplines of Graphic Design, Fashion Design, and Interior Design come together to solve design problems in the city of Richmond. Also: We stop in at the Virginia Center for the Book, where Kristin Keimu Adolfson is printing a collaborative book called Bird Talk using an antique Vandercook printing press. Plus: Craft brewer Gabe Mixon (Blue Ridge Community College in Flatrock, NC) shares a lesson in making beer. Later in the show: Chef and food activist Alice Waters argues that every child in America should be fed free, organic food at schools. Waters speaks candidly about her life before she opened Chez Panisse, her seminal farm-to-table restaurant in Berkeley, California.