In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Peter Werkhoven, a master gilder and picture framer who trained for a decade at an Amsterdam workbench and now owns Aedicule, inside his fine framing studio and showroom in San Francisco. Their conversation traces a career that started by accident — Peter was in his early twenties, back from France with no plan, when someone asked him to help out at a frame shop for two weeks; he never left, bought into the business within a year, and spent ten years at a long shared table learning from a man who learned it from his father, who learned it from his. Peter walks through what happens between a piece of lumber and a finished frame — the carving, the gesso of chalk and animal-hide glue, the layers of colored clay, the gold leaf burnished with an agate stone the same way King Tut's mask was burnished three thousand years ago, and then the deliberate undoing of it, the scratches and wormholes and pigment dust that make a new frame read as three centuries old — and the two questions he answers the second a painting lands on his easel: white gold or yellow, and does this painting need help, or does he need to back away from it, because his job, as he puts it, is to be a servant to the painting. He's candid about the edges: the students who leave once they find out how much there is to learn, the silversmiths and clockmakers he thinks may be gone in fifty years, the clients who care whether the frame matches the couch. He's watched machines carve a frame to eighty percent accurate, and says the last twenty is what he's there for. Whether you're a maker, a collector, or someone who has stood in a museum and looked past the painting at the frame, this episode is a masterclass in learning a trade at someone else's elbow, serving the work instead of showing off, and building a life around something you would do seven days a week.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

🖼️ Where to find Peter Werkhoven:Website: https://www.aedicule.com/Instagram: @aedicule

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:Instagram: @tradesshowTikTok: @tradesshowYouTube: @tradesshow Substack: Trade SecretsWebsite: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:Instagram: @brianaaugustina Substack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:

00:00 Work as Play00:19 Season Intro San Francisco01:02 Meet Peter Werkhoven02:18 What a Master Gilder Does02:46 Finding the Craft by Accident03:52 Learning Never Ends06:20 Choosing the Right Frame07:47 Gold Karats and Style08:30 History in Every Profile09:47 Bringing Europe to SF13:34 Serving the Art First16:10 Loving the Work16:41 Training the Next Generation19:54 Apprenticeship and Sharing21:35 Shopping and Art World Shifts23:51 Gilding Demo and Patina25:48 Handmade vs Factory Frames27:28 Tech and AI in Craft31:55 Advice and Closing

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Bob Buckter, the San Francisco native known citywide as "Dr. Color," an architectural colorist whose palettes sit on more than 18,000 buildings in San Francisco and 25,000 across a 56-year career, inside his San Francisco home. Their conversation traces the whole arc — from the two weeks he worked for a painter in 1970 before going into business for himself, to the signs he staked on every finished Victorian that made the phone ring, to the year-long sailing trip around the world that ended with him quitting painting for good and doing only the part he loved. Bob walks through the formula underneath the color you see all over the city — a medium-value body, a moderate chroma, a light major trim, a darker shade at the base — and the subconscious architecture beneath it, the posts and beams and friezes he accents so a building reads as solid enough to walk into. He talks about popularizing gold leaf on San Francisco exteriors when nobody here had seen it, and the new book that took three and a half years to make, its cover a house he painted in 1976 from the colors he spotted in an architect's necktie. He's candid about the edges — the all-one-dark-color trend he calls an ignorant approach because it ignores the architecture, the difficulty of coming up with something genuinely new after 25,000 jobs, the fact that he's worked solo the entire time with no successor, though he says he's open to one — and he's easier about technology than you might expect, from the custom program he commissioned in 1990 that cut a job spec from forty-five minutes to seven, to the clients who try AI and then call him anyway. Whether you're a designer, a restorer, or someone who has walked past a building and wondered why it looked good, this episode is a masterclass in developing a signature style, building a reputation one sign at a time, and what good taste actually means from someone about to turn eighty.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

🎨 Where to find Bob Buckter:Website: https://drcolor.com/Book: https://drcolorbook.com/

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:Instagram: @tradesshowTikTok: @tradesshowYouTube: @tradesshowSubstack: Trade SecretsWebsite: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:Instagram: @brianaaugustinaSubstack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:00:00 This Is What San Francisco Looks Like00:53 Season Setup In SF01:26 Meet Bob Buckter02:43 What An Architectural Colorist Does04:09 Eighteen Thousand Buildings04:31 The Signs That Built A Reputation05:30 Costa Rica And The Rainforest Preserve09:08 From Painting To Color Consulting09:54 Quitting Painting, Sailing The World10:30 Inside The Process12:59 The New Book13:27 The Colors In An Architect's Necktie15:36 The Placement Formula16:43 The All-One-Color Trend17:44 Popularizing Gold Leaf19:56 Restoring Mercedes Convertibles21:42 What Good Taste Means23:09 Taste, AI, And What Machines Miss25:36 The Book, And Turning Eighty27:06 The Paint-By-Number Spec29:00 The Rose-Colored Glasses29:28 The Computer Program From 199033:01 What's Changed In 56 Years36:27 Post And Beam Psychology39:09 Where To Buy The Book39:36 The Lightning Round44:23 One Thing To Take Away

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Lorna Kollmeyer, a sculptor, mold maker, and caster of ornamental plaster who owns the last plaster shop in San Francisco, inside her studio at the Hunters Point Shipyard. Their conversation traces how the whole trade fell into Lorna's lap — from a young basketball star who landed in San Francisco in her early twenties with no plan, enchanted by a city where no two Victorians looked alike, to the couple restoring Victorian flats who taught her to strip originals and pour her own molds, to the day someone asked if she wanted to buy a plaster business and she answered, "No, but I'll ask my friends," before buying it herself. Lorna walks through the Majestic Hotel — her very first job, a corner building of mermaids and egg-and-dart she bid at twenty thousand dollars when the next bid came in at fifty-six, learning sculpture from her girlfriends as they went — and into what ornamental plaster actually is: the ceiling medallions, corbels, and crown moldings that make San Francisco's architecture its own quirky self. She opens up the process, from stripping a paint-caked original to laying rubber and building a mother mold, and the archive it has become — thousands of pieces brought in by homeowners who cared enough to save them, a living library she calls the city's collection, not her own. She's candid about the edges of the work — the ultra-wealthy gut-jobs that hollow out a Victorian's interior, the plaster shops that closed as commercial rents climbed, the fight to keep her shop and the Shipyard's artist community from being knocked down for condos — and where the craft is going as 3D scanning saves a three-month sculpting job and a new generation of thirty-somethings tells her they're starving for things not spat out by a machine. Whether you're a maker, a restorer, or someone who has ever lovedan old house, this episode is a masterclass in learning on the job, building a business that outlasts you, and becoming the custodian of a city's history.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

🏛️ Where to find Lorna Kollmeyer:

Website: https://www.lornakollmeyer.com/

Instagram: @lornakollmeyer

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:

Instagram: @tradesshow

TikTok: @tradesshow

YouTube: @tradesshow

Substack: Trade Secrets

Website: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:

Instagram: @brianaaugustina

Substack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/

Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:

00:00 The Only Plaster Shop In SF

01:09 Meet Lorna Kollmeyer

02:20 From Basketball To San Francisco

06:34 Meeting Peter And Helaine

10:21 The Business Falls Into Her Lap

11:36 What Ornamental Plaster Is

13:53 Learning On The Job

14:51 The Majestic Hotel Bid

18:12 The Twenty-Thousand-Dollar Gamble

19:27 An Angel On Her Shoulder

21:05 Landing At Hunters Point

23:58 Too Dumb To Say No

27:21 Inside The Process

29:43 How A Mold Is Made

31:13 A Custodian Of The City's History

34:53 Gutting And Restoring Victorians

44:23 The Business Of Ornamental Plaster

47:04 The Last Plaster Shop In SF

48:36 Fighting To Stay At The Shipyard

51:15 Keeping The Trade Alive

52:24 Where Technology Meets Plaster

56:57 The Lightning Round

58:45 Advice For Getting Started

1:02:18 One Thing To Take Away

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Béatrice Amblard, the only Hermès-trained leather artisan in the US working under her own label and the founder of April in Paris and Heirloom Leathercraft, inside her San Francisco atelier. Their conversation traces nearly five decades in leather — from the moment a sixteen-year-old Béatrice, steered toward the trades by a French school system that didn't know what to do with her dyslexia, walked into a leather classroom and felt every one of her senses wake up — the scent of wax and hide, the benches worn smooth by generations of students — to the four years at Hermès that shaped her, where she learned that quality is non-negotiable and that every stitch has a purpose. Béatrice shares the philosophy behind her bespoke work — that real luxury is quiet, singular, and made to be kept and passed down — and walks through the arc of her career: leaving Hermès in 1988 to start April in Paris with nothing, building a one-of-a-kind custom accessories practice, and being pushed into teaching by students who would not take no for an answer, a leap that became Heirloom Leathercraft, the only formal school of its kind in the country, where she has trained more than a thousand people in fourteen years. She is candid about the realities behind the romance — the tanneries that have all but vanished, the quality of leather slipping as mass production took hold, the physical toll that has her working fewer days, the guilt of burning a piece that did not meet the mark — and genuinely hopeful about where craft and technology meet, how AI can help a maker launch a business and how the fast-paced tech world keeps sending her students hungry for something they can make with their hands. Whether you are a maker, a small-business builder, or someone craving a creative outlet beyond the screen, this episode is a masterclass in building a bespoke business without compromising on quality, preserving a trade by teaching it, and finding a whole life inside the work.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

👜 Where to find Béatrice Amblard:April in Paris: https://www.aprilinparis.us/Heirloom Leathercraft: https://heirloomleathercraft.com/Instagram: @aprilinparis_sfInstagram: @heirloomleathercraft

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:Instagram: @tradesshowTikTok: @tradesshowYouTube: @tradesshowSubstack: Trade SecretsWebsite: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:Instagram: @brianaaugustinaSubstack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:00:00 Season Setup In SF00:37 Meet Béatrice Amblard02:15 Describing The Craft02:52 From Paris To Hermès05:06 Starting April In Paris06:31 Falling In Love With Leather08:19 The Senses Of The Trade10:40 How The Industry Changed11:53 Luxury Is Quiet12:41 The Vanishing Tanneries15:15 Leather And A Sustainable Ecosystem20:35 The Trade School Stigma23:13 Every Stitch Has A Purpose28:49 Taking The Leap Into Teaching32:32 A Renewed Interest In Craft36:32 Training Her Daughter40:18 How AI Can Support The Craft44:30 Don't Give Up46:53 One Takeaway: Be Happy

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Amanda Luu, florist, founder of Studio Mondine, and a lifelong student of Ikenobo Ikebana, inside her San Francisco home. Their conversation traces Amanda's circuitous path into flowers — from a degree in economics and environmental policy and a career in marketing, to the ten-minute commutes she spent gathering leaves and grasses from parking lots, to the apprenticeships she took on for $11 an hour to learn the craft hands-on, the way a cook stages in a kitchen. Amanda shares the quiet "portal" winter after she quit her job at the end of wedding season, where working with dead branches and gleaned material pushed her toward the minimalist forms that became her signature and eventually led her to formal Ikebana study — the 600-year-old Japanese practice whose oldest school she now trains in, learning to express the life force of a single stem and to read an arrangement as a landscape. She's candid about what it takes to keep a tradition alive when the average practitioner in the West is 72, and about the wordless correction of a teacher whose lineage runs back centuries, passed down through the kanji characters in a student's name. And in a turn you might not expect from a craft this old, Amanda makes the case for being a tech-forward flower studio — running a logistics business underwritten by data and flower "recipes," and rendering arrangements that don't yet exist in Canva and Gemini so a wild idea can be tested in the room before a single stem is sourced. Whether you're a florist, a maker drawn to slow practice, or someone curious how a centuries-old art stays alive in the age of AI, this episode is a masterclass in finding your own voice in a craft, building a studio that lasts, and cultivating an intimacy with nature that feeds everything else.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

💐 Where to find Amanda Luu and Studio Mondine:

Website: https://www.studiomondine.com/

Instagram: @studiomondine

Substack: Mondine After Dark

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:

Instagram: @tradesshow

TikTok: @tradesshow

YouTube: @tradesshow

Substack: Trade Secrets

Website: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:

Instagram: @brianaaugustina

Substack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/

Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:

00:00 Season Setup in SF

01:00 Meet Amanda Luu

02:43 From Economics to Flowers

03:30 Magpie Gathering on the Commute

04:30 Apprenticing for Free

06:00 Balancing Two Careers

08:30 Quitting at Wedding Season's End

11:00 Finding Form in the Quiet Season

13:00 What Is Ikebana

15:00 Flowers Hold Time

21:00 Finding a Teacher

23:00 The Wordless Correction and Lineage

25:00 Preserving a 600-Year-Old Tradition

27:00 A Tech-Forward Flower Studio

31:00 Rendering Arrangements with AI

34:00 Flowers as Storytelling

37:00 The Language of Flowers

42:00 The Florist's Florist

43:30 Advice for Early-Stage Florists

46:00 Quick Round: Technology and Flowers

49:00 One Thing to Take Away

50:00 Where to Find Studio Mondine

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Jefferson Mack, a self-taught architectural blacksmith with a 50-year career, inside his San Francisco workshop. Their conversation spans nearly five decades of making — from the Eric Sloane book that planted the seed when Jefferson was a child, to a self-taught path that wound through scrap-yard forges in his mother's backyard, lighting work on rock 'n' roll tours, and a construction career that finally cracked open the leap into full-time blacksmithing. Jefferson shares the philosophy behind his signature work — what he calls "antiques from the future," forms that fuse traditional hammered texture with contemporary tension — and walks through the milestones that built his career: the four-page Restoration Hardware spread that brought him a moment of national visibility, the demonstration nights he modeled after Dale Chihuly to teach architects what blacksmithing could be, the staircases that took seven and eight years to land, and the slow, hard-won art of selling a craft most people don't realize they need. He's candid about the toll of the work — the muscle memory it takes to feel hot steel through a hammer, the seven-year apprenticeship windows that no longer exist, the cost of making at 71 — and where the trade is going as the next generation finds its way in through maker spaces, welding kits, and YouTube. Whether you're a maker, a builder, or someone trying to figure out how to sustain a creative business over the long arc, this episode is a masterclass in self-taught mastery, pricing handmade work, declaring yourself in a craft no one else is pursuing, and what it actually takes to last 50 years.

The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.

🔥 Where to find Jefferson Mack:

Website: https://www.mackmetal.com/

Instagram: @mack.jefferson

⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:

Instagram: @tradesshow

TikTok: @tradesshow

YouTube: @tradesshow

Substack: Trade Secrets

Website: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/

✨ Where to find your host, Briana:

Instagram: @brianaaugustina

Substack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/

Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/

🎬 In this episode:

00:00 Season Setup In SF

01:50 Meet Jefferson Mack

03:37 Origins Of A Blacksmith

11:18 Taking The Leap

17:36 Selling And Apprenticeships

30:55 Learning Paths Today

31:44 Maker Spaces and Welding

33:19 Restoration Hardware Breakthrough

42:36 Pricing Handmade Work

59:16 Finish and Produce

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Stuart Brioza, James Beard Award-winning chef and co-owner of State Bird Provisions, The Progress, and The Anchovy Bar, inside The Progress restaurant in San Francisco. Their conversation traces Stuart's path from dishwasher at fifteen to leading three of the city's most celebrated restaurants — and explores what it means to define California cuisine in a time when every ingredient imaginable shows up at the farmers market. Stuart shares the origin story of State Bird's small plates revolution, the handmade design philosophy that built The Progress (down to every chair, table, and piece of pottery), and why he opened The Anchovy Bar to celebrate a two-hour-out-of-water local fish that nobody else pays attention to. They talk about discovery versus innovation, the good-better-best mindset that drives his cooking, and why restaurants are one of the last places that require active human participation. Whether you're a cook, a craft-curious diner, or someone trying to figure out how to stay creative without burning out, this episode is a masterclass in leading with patience, building for longevity, and cooking with all five senses.The Trades Show is an interview series on location with modern artisans exploring what it means to be human: the ability to create with our hands.🔥 Where to find Stuart Brioza:Atomic Restaurant Group: https://atomic-workshop.com/Stuart Brioza IG: https://www.instagram.com/atomicstew/State Bird Provisions: https://www.statebirdsf.com/The Progress: https://theprogress-sf.com/home/The Anchovy Bar: https://www.theanchovybar.com/⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:Instagram: @tradesshow (https://www.instagram.com/tradesshow/)TikTok: @tradesshow (https://www.tiktok.com/@tradesshow)YouTube: ‪@tradesshow‬ (https://www.youtube.com/@tradesshow)Substack: Trade Secrets (https://revivethetrades.substack.com/)Website: https://www.thetradesshowpod.com/✨ Where to find your host, Briana:Instagram: @brianaaugustina ( / brianaaugustina )Substack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/🎬 In this episode:00:00 Welcome to The Trades Show00:36 Meet Chef Stuart Brioza01:45 Cooking as a Sensory Craft02:38 Leading Three Restaurants04:19 State Bird Small Plates06:38 The Progress Handmade Design09:30 Good Better Best Mindset12:20 Defining California Cuisine15:11 Anchovy Bar Local Mission20:14 From Dishwasher to Chef26:32 Landing First Kitchen Job28:14 Learning Through Mistakes29:53 How Cooking Culture Changed30:20 Social Media and Dish Lineage34:04 Discovery Becomes Innovation38:10 Boredom as Creative Fuel41:55 Restaurants as Human Refuge44:32 Innovating Without Burnout48:53 Tech Wins and Losses50:16 Simplicity and Career Advice51:40 Craftspeople for Life53:57 Closing Thanks and Outro

Host Briana Ottoboni introduces season two of The Trades Show, filmed on location with artisans in San Francisco, and explains why the rise of AI and the return to analog craftsmanship are happening at the same time. She shares her Bay Area background, her first encounter with shoe cobbling that sparked her passion for artisan trades, and her concern about who carries these crafts forward as older generations retire. Briana defines artisan trades as the intersection of fine arts and skilled trades—uniting creativity, aesthetic rigor, technique, and tradition—and recounts how a window of “creative spaciousness” led her to create a high-production “show,” with season one serving as a 10-episode pilot. She outlines a city-by-city vision, season two’s biweekly Thursday release schedule, and the broader ecosystem she’s building, including The Corral artisan jobs board that uses technology and AI to make artisan work more visible, viable, and valued.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Briana’s intro into the artisan trades and shoe cobbling
• The Why behind The Trades Show
• Why now in the age of AI is the perfect time to revive the artisan trades
• Her vision for the show
• What you can expect for Season 2 and beyond

👩🏻‍🎨 Where to find Briana Ottoboni:

Follow on Instagram: @brianaaugustina

Follow on LinkedIn: @brianaottoboni

🛠️ Where to find The Trades Show:Follow on Instagram: @tradesshowFollow on TikTok: @tradesshowSubscribe on YouTube: @tradesshowRead the Substack: https://revivethetrades.substack.comVisit the website: thetradesshowpod.com

🎙️Credits:Host & Creator – Briana OttoboniCreative Direction, Filming & Editing – Briana OttoboniOriginal Theme Music – Federico Wanzo, Skane Music

📺 In this episode:

00:00 AI Meets Craft01:01 Season Two Kickoff01:39 Cobbler Spark03:03 Why Trades Matter04:55 Learning In Portland06:01 Birth Of The Show08:50 Season One Lessons09:28 San Francisco Backdrop11:29 Humanity In Imperfection12:59 Mission And Pathways15:53 Release Schedule16:23 The Corral Jobs Board17:59 Wrap Up And Subscribe18:47 Outro Credits

Meet the artisans keeping craft alive in the age of AI. Season 2 of The Trades Show takes you inside the workshops of San Francisco's most skilled tradespeople — from bladesmiths to chefs — exploring why handcraft matters more than ever. New episodes coming soon.

Follow The Trades Show for stories of mastery, tradition, and the human hands shaping our world.

#TheTrades #Artisan #SkilledTrades #Handcraft #Craftsmanship #SanFrancisco #TradesShow #ArtisanEconomy #MadeByHand

In this episode of The Trades Show, host Briana Ottoboni sits down with Sarah Larson, founder of Often Wander, inside Sarah's studio, which is also set to become a storefront. They discuss the nuances of crafting scents through candle making, the journey from managing two retail stores to focusing on e-commerce, and the struggles and rewards of saying no to misaligned opportunities. Sarah shares her origin story, which includes moments of manifestation and serendipity, and how she has navigated her business through significant changes, including the impact of COVID-19. The episode dives into the creative process, the importance of thinking small, and how setting boundaries can lead to sustainable success. Tune in to learn about Sarah’s unique journey, her approach to maintaining creativity, and her vision for the future of Often Wander.

The Trades Show is a show about modern craftwork — a conversation series with artisans and a return to what makes us human: the ability to create with our hands.

🕯️ Where to find Sarah Larson:https://oftenwander.com/  / oftenwander  ⚒️ Where to find The Trades Show:Instagram: @tradesshow (  / tradesshow   )TikTok: @tradesshow (  / tradesshow  )YouTube: ‪@tradesshow‬ Substack: Trade Secrets (https://revivethetrades.substack.com/)Website: https://www.thetradesshow.co/✨ Where to find your host, Briana:Instagram: @brianaaugustina (  / brianaaugustina  )Substack: https://brianaaugustina.substack.com/Website: https://www.brianaaugustina.com/🎬 In this episode:00:00 Manifestation and the Birth of Often Wander00:16 Welcome to The Trades Show01:25 Introducing Sarah Larson of Often Wander02:22 The Origin Story of Often Wander05:44 The Journey to San Francisco08:38 Navigating Challenges and Growth09:49 Adapting to a Post-COVID World11:52 Embracing a Smaller, Sustainable Business Model17:16 Exploring New Creative Avenues22:17 Exploring Candle Making Techniques22:57 Creating Scents Inspired by Nature24:35 The Art and Science of Candle Making28:10 Future Plans for Often Wander30:14 Balancing Creativity and Business32:43 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs39:19 Upcoming Projects and Where to Find Often Wander41:22 Conclusion and How to Support the Show