Three days in the shed

Builds solid-timber pieces in a two-person workshop and has never once advertised. On what happens when the waiting list reaches fourteen months and you still will not hire.

Draws text faces with a full set of isiZulu and Afrikaans accents, and licenses them himself. Twenty minutes on why the retail font market broke and what independents should charge instead.

Throws production runs for three restaurants and still fires every piece herself. On the arithmetic of a gas kiln, and the wholesale order she turned down last winter.

Ten years inside a plastics factory, then out on his own in Glenwood. Bringing the tooling drawings for a stacking chair that took four failed prototypes to get right.

Runs a four-loom studio in the Karoo with five weavers she trained from scratch. On teaching people slowly in a town where nobody else does this work.

Paints shopfronts, taxi doors and the occasional gallery wall by hand. Bringing his brushes, his enamels and some strong opinions about cut vinyl.

Rebinds Qurans, family bibles and archive volumes from a room roughly the size of a bakkie. On repair as a discipline, and what people will genuinely pay to keep.

Spins and welds his own shades two streets from the venue. On the year he tried importing components and what it taught him about the suppliers already down the road.