Recently I was visiting with the last man in Rothenburg, Germany, to make etchings in the style of Albrecht Dürer. He’s in failing health and in about a year, his 3,000 lovingly etched copper plates will be retired and parked in some obscure museum’s basement. Friends in little towns on the Rhine are lamenting how the younger generation is not following in the footsteps of their family businesses and, as they flee to the energy of the big cities, their parents’ businesses just fade away. The artists who craft handmade guitars in Madrid, the family winemakers of Burgundy, the fisherman who sells his shrimp on the Oslo harborfront–these have all been fixtures of Europe for me in a lifetime of travels. What will become of all these rich facets of local culture when the younger generation opts out? Of course, I can’t blame the children of the artisans for jumping into the modern rat race any more than I’m guilty for not being an old-school piano technician like my dad. But it is worth considering how the future will look when economic scale and efficiency trumps artisan values.
My friend, Steven Brenner (who runs Cross-Pollinate, with some of my favorite budget beds in Rome and beyond) produced a little video that eloquently says what I’ve been thinking lately about artisans in Europe. Check out this short video featuring a young cobbler in Orvieto, Italy, who, in the simple words of a traditional, small-town artisan, captures perfectly an art form we are all losing.
What are your favorite experiences that celebrate the artisan way of life in Europe?
It is so sad, I have some beautiful ceramics on my kitchen counter sent home from Orvieto.
Here’s the thing… when the summer tour buses go to their cold-weather pastures, and the tourists tidal wave of the warm weather seasons falls to a trickle, the people who live in Europe still have to make a living. Despite the perception, this isn’t a giant theme park for retirees. It’s a dynamic continent that still has to deliver a decent life style to it’s citizens, even if that goes against the pre-conceived ideas of upper middle class travelers from other continents. There’s always going to be someone to sell you the Europe you’re looking for. But it’s unreasonable to expect all of Europe to remain as some kind of pre-industrial folksy time capsule. European “culture” isn’t some artifact that’s been frozen in amber since WWII, it’s constantly changing and evolving.
Hello Rick,
I am a longtime fan of your books and series ever since I went backpacking in Europe with “Europe Through the Back Door” in 1992.
I have your entire video collection, and I would like to congratulate you for the way that you bend over backwards to showcase and explain artisanal treasures in the places that you visit. I know that the TV format puts immense time constraints on you, and you are sacrificing other worthy topics in order to show a glassblower or cobbler. I would like to thank you for the effort, because your show just would not be the same without it. It would be just hotels, food, trains and sites. When I watch your shows, I really do feel like I was personally introduced to the artisans that you present. I feel the personal connection. Also, your radio programs take deep dives into traditional arts and crafts.
I do not know what can be done to prevent the diaspora of young people who choose to not take up the family business. It is not always true that the family business cannot provide a comfortable income. But three things are true: (1) You cannot possibly “strike it rich” in traditional artisanal careers; (2) You will not live a very “mobile” life; and (3) You will probably not receive a well-rounded education. And honestly, Rick, #3 might be the biggest dis-incentive to entering a trade. Young people do not want to go directly from grade school into a trade school to learn about glass or leather. Perhaps it would make a difference if trade school students were guaranteed a reasonably well-rounded education at no extra cost.
From the digital preservation perspective, I know that the EU has been working diligently to create a library categorization system and information retrieval standards for cultural heritage digital artifacts. But personally, I think that digital technologies in the cultural preservation arena have plateaued and will not advance significantly until we master the visual browser and visual search. I briefly explored this problem with Native American amateur videos. Many tribes have hours of amateur video capturing activities and artifacts, with few or no words. The ability to search or hyperlink on images would be a game-changer for cultural preservation.
Thanks for expanding my horizons,
–Alex