Word: silversmithing
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Gifted artisans, who abound in the land of Disney and tinsel, labored at arcane specialties. Among them: Decorative Painter Frank Baumann, 71, who plied his trade in the lavish 1930s movie theaters, and German-born Karl Mindermann, 51, a silversmith. Baumann took charge of the delicate brushwork while Mindermann worked on recoppering the dome. Sculptor Michael Casey walked in one day to see what was going on and ended up plastering walls and ceilings-sometimes with cake-decorating tools. Says Mathews: "There is talent and skill left in this country like you can't believe...
Amid this historical revivalism, one question remains. Do grand edifices promote noble accomplishments? Speaker Brown thinks that they are an inspiration. "In these incredible surroundings," he said, "I suspect that most of us will rise above anything we thought we were capable of doing." That sentiment was echoed by Silversmith Mindermann, who is now working in a sheet-metal shop. "You drive by," he says, "and you look up at it, and you can't help feeling anything but proud...
...somehow, the older, tamer forests of the Berkshires and the Adirondacks suit McPhee better than the wild barren extremities of the 49th state, America's last frontier. McPhee is too much the Princetonian descendant of the painstaking Yankee silversmith. He crafts nice pieces for nice people to read in their nice New Yorkers when they're through looking at the cartoons, inferring polite, understated meanings with a precise style and weightless control. But one knows his Alaska is an idealized one to read about in front of the fire on a cold Greenwich, Conn. night accompanied by 12-year...
...Sweden's most distinguished writers, announced last month that he had burned the manuscripts for a new five-volume series of novels. His angry explanation: "Practically everything I earn is taxed around 100%. It is all my life's work that is being stolen." Silversmith Rey Urban, 46, moans that while his products are in demand everywhere, "I don't dare produce on a large scale" because of the taxes. In order to avoid records of transactions and hence a tax on earnings, there has even been something of a return to barter. Example: a dentist will...
...even more grievous loss is John Singleton Copley, perhaps the greatest painter this country has yet produced. Still only 38, he is just now reaching the peak of his powers. There is scarcely an eminent person in Boston who has not sat for him, and his portrait of Silversmith Paul Revere is masterly. (He has also portrayed many non-Bostonian notables like Thomas Mifflin, who was recently made a brigadier general in the Continental Army.) But it was his fortune, or misfortune, to marry the daughter of Boston's most successful dealer in tea, Richard Clarke...