What happens when we stop teaching people how to make things?

On Crafting Human, next Wednesday, 1/28, join me for a fascinating conversation with Valerie Legras, Founder & Creative Director of SWADOH design studio, and Morgane Baroghel-Crucq, a French fibre artist and artisan. We are having a conversation about craft, independence, and what’s lost when knowledge isn’t passed down.

We reflect on the ideas of:

• Craft being intelligence made visible.
• Slowness is not inefficiency, but care and aligning with the natural rhythms of life.
• Objects, spaces, and rituals carry memory.
• Meaning emerges through process, not just output.

On this episode of Crafting Human™, painter and educator Gabriel Islas reflects on plein air painting: working in the landscape where weather, time, discomfort, and imperfection shape both the process and the outcome.

Together, we explore his journey and growth as an artist, which has taught him to trust in the moments and process, even when the scale or stakes felt intimidating.

Crafting Human™ is a space for conversations that go beyond aesthetics to explore what it means to create and cultivate our humanity in a world increasingly shaped by speed and automation.

In this episode:
– Discomfort as a catalyst for creative growth
– Letting go of perfection in the making process
– Presence, imperfection, and working with place

You can explore Gabriel’s work here:
Website: gabrielislasart.com
Instagram: @gabriel_islas_art

New episodes of Crafting Human™ air every Wednesday. Subscribe to the podcast and join the Crafting Human creative tribe at the link below.

craftinghuman.myflodesk.com/jointhecreativetribe

As technology accelerates speed, scale, and efficiency, many of us are left asking deeper questions: what does it mean to be human in a world increasingly shaped by machines?

Hosted by designer and creative leader Sharon Yu, Crafting Human™ podcast celebrates the humans behind the work: the artists, makers, designers, craftsmen, and storytellers whose creativity shapes how we experience culture, community, and ourselves.

Each week, conversations go beyond output and aesthetics to explore the uniquely human perspectives, lived experiences, and creative processes that give depth and soul to what we make. We look at who we are beneath our professions, how creativity reflects our humanity, and why the human touch still matters.

Across each episode, we meet emerging artists and established creatives from around the world, going behind the scenes of their work to understand how meaning and purpose emerge through process and how creativity serves the communities around us.

We also explore the evolving role of technology and AI, not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a tool that reveals what we value, what we fear, and what we must remember.

Crafting Human™ is a space for reflection, curiosity, and connection and an invitation to rediscover the stories that make us, us.

New episodes every Wednesday.

If you’d like to watch the Crafting Human™ trailer and subscribe on YouTube, you can find it here.

And if you feel called to stay connected, you’re warmly invited to join the Crafting Human creative tribe here.