Makers of the USA

"So my craft is something that I call the contemplative process of candle making. The process of getting here or the route to getting to this place is a bit long and winded so I'll try to make it as brief as possible. I was an artsy kid, I was born in the bustling metropolis of Danville, Virginia. That's a huge laugh line for your listeners. It's not a bustling metropolis, but it's Southern Virgin...

"I am a photographer. I have been doing it at this point, for about 14 years and it's kind of evolved over those years. Right now I'm focusing on interior and architectural photography. But in the beginning, what inspired me, was to take it from a hobby to a more professional level. I just really fell in love with the digital world and I had been using film so everything just kind of opened up and...

"I asked for a tape recorder when I was seven years old, and I got a camera instead. I'm like, this is a tape recorder...my grandmother gave it to me and said you can record with that too. At the time, my parents had gotten divorced, and my parents were from DC and then we moved to Cambridge. The camera was a way for me to stay connected. I take photographs, I only use the camera when I went to DC...

"When we took over it was a nice I guess disco. It was just a poor excuse for a disco I guess but that's what it was. But I was always into music. I loved music and that's what I wanted to do. So I started booking bands and you know, we went from local bands to regional bands to everybody. From Smashing Pumpkins to David Cassidy," said Ron Furman, owner and founder of Max's Tap House .  Ron and hi...

"I would say my craft is the preservation of traditional sailing. And I think the thing that inspired me to start it was just a lot of my connection to nature as a kid and how sailing and doing it in a sort of, I guess I for lack of a better term, say more organic way, with less plastic and less technology and sort of just, you know, more wherewithal, and that sort of inspired me to go the route o...

“I was always like a record store hound since I was in elementary school and so I started working record stores and I worked at weird indy stores. Yeah, like underground music they're cool back in the 80s. And yeah, and but those stores often had like a strong kind of roots music component as well and by chance I heard a recording that been a field recording of a fiddle and banjo player made in th...

"So my craft is music, I am a creator, I'm a composer, a bandleader. Those are like the main things that I'm focusing on but play the trumpet. I've been playing for about 15 years and how I got into it. I used to play the drums, I used to bang on pots. First, I used to bang on pots and pans when I was growing up. My mom and dad were still together and then I went to elementary school, the first in...

“I'm able to make color by working with glass and the glass that I work with is fused dichroic glass, which I work in a kiln. But what really got me started was I had a pair of earrings that my Mom had given me years ago and I lost one. I was inspired to make a match for that earring at the same time that I was looking for a new way to find work to walk through my day,” said Alison. Alison was a c...

“I like to say that I make the world's finest razors pure and simple. I hand-turn wooden razor handles that fit modern cartridges like Gillette, Schick, and double edge blades. I'm still trying to get in Dollar Shave Club in Harry's but I'm so small, they don't know I exist yet. But one day, that's a good goal to have. I've always been a woodworker. More as a hobby. I was a social worker for 10 ye...

“I'm an urban planner by profession and through my work as an urban planner for the city of Baltimore developed the Made in Baltimore program. So I would say that my craft is an economic development community organization. I’m also interested in all of the different types of activities that our, our member businesses do for their work. I do have a background as an artist, and through that work hav...

“I am a Penobscot basket maker. So I actually do come from a long line of basket makers. So it's in my family, and it was always something that I had an interest in. I think I was just an artist like I've always been an artist since I was just, I remember being four or five, six years old, and that's all I wanted to do was draw, color. So making things has always been my real true kind of desire a...

When Nick Rossi was starting to learn the craft behind knife making in the late 90s, early 2000s, there were not a lot of places around that you could go and learn how to do this, there were only a few seminars. He said especially in Maine, there was not a lot to help move you along through the craft. The luckiest part of his journey was meeting knife makers when he got a job in a retail cutlery s...

Ramona studied psychology in college and focuses on crisis and trauma counseling. She has set out to be a trauma and crisis counselor and that led her to practice reflexology. It calms the nervous system opening the door for other treatments to work.  She had a full schedule before the pandemic, seeing 15-20 clients a week. She shares that she was glad she picked up painting as giving all of her e...

About a year ago Kristan Vermeulen was sitting in her bedroom closet recording the first episode of her Makers of Maine podcast and today, she is sitting in the same spot recording her first episode of Makers of the USA. She can’t believe the time has come to expand this project she has worked so hard on. Kristan Vermeulen is a storyteller that enjoys interviewing makers of all sorts. She finds th...

“But when you are taking fashion illustration at FIT, you have to take a couple of painting classes. The most interesting thing that I've learned over time painting, is that painting is not drawing. That's one of the things that I do teach in my classes. It's not tracing something on a canvas and filling it in, you're actually painting light,” said Ric. Kristan Vermeulen sat down with Ric to learn...

Brendan Bullock , a photojournalist based out of Bowdoinham, Maine, has won many awards for his editorial work but his photo work doesn't stop there. He is also a wedding photographer but he likes to keep each business separate as each is a different form of photography. He may use the same cameras and techniques, but it is a different mindset when stepping into each setting.  He has worked on man...

John and Tom of Lone Pine Brewing started their business in 2016 in Portland and quickly expanded to their location in Gorham and broadened its product line to include hard seltzer. The business idea stemmed from a conversation both longtime friends and former bandmates had. With help from the local community between financial institutions, other breweries, and much more, their growth continues to...

“One thing I really love about Great North Sound Society is that you can stay on site, it's a great place to hang out and then there are these two specific rooms that are primarily music making rooms. So, you also have a sort of focused area. It's like okay, now we're here and we're working on the record and all that fun stuff we did last night is over and we're working on the record again,” said ...

“I've been playing music my whole life, as have my bandmates. All of us come from musical families. Both of my parents are professional musicians and music teachers. My parents' names are Susie Burke and David Seret and they play a lot of different kinds of folk and traditional music. I grew up kind of immersed in the folk and roots music community in the sea coast area. It was kind of a no braine...

“It's a puzzle; the shapes of the puzzle keep changing based on my interests in the music that I like at a certain time. You sort of put it together, right? You feel like, okay, I've got that puzzle together. Then, a week later, the shapes change,” said Dietrich. While viewing the behind the scenes of Dietrich's recording session at Great North Sound Society , which you may have seen in the previe...

Sam Kassirer is originally from Massachusetts and had vacationed to Maine quite a few times at a young age. He has always had a passion for music of all kinds but jazz is one genre that truly hits home with him. He has played for a variety of bands including Josh Ritter and many others. He decided to start his own music studio, Great North Sound Society , over ten years ago and the location that c...

The episode starts out with Aidan Frazer who is the founder and designer behind Luster Hustler. She has a deep passion for supporting women's rights and believes that the woman body should be appreciated more as an art form, a functional piece, really just appreciated in general. Aidan is new to being an entrepreneur but thanks to her mentors and support system, her business has grown from solely...

Heather currently crafts her beautiful pieces in South Portland but before starting her business and starting her family here in Maine she lived in Northern California. She attended a pattern-making school in San Francisco and learned how to make her own patterns. She learned how to bring her ideas to life. She was a photographer and film archivist prior to taking the leap of faith of starting her...

Kyle Lamont is an award-winning producer and the founder of Good To Go Studios , a multi-media company based in Maine. She also recently worked as a commercial Producer/ Director for Matador Network, the largest producer of branded travel content in the world.  Her short film “Passive Aggressive Dads” won the best comedy at the Beaufort Film Festival in 2019 and her work for TravelNevada and Airst...

The episode starts out with Jim Woldenberg discussing his business Tempshield and what it was like prior to him taking it over in 2018. He then jumps right into sharing the in-depth process of crafting the cryogenic protective gear and how important it was to keep their manufacturing in Maine. Jim has expanded Tempshield's operations by entering into new industries and locations around the world a...