Kira Eng-Wilmot is a textile conservator at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, where she cares for tapestries in the church’s collection and private commissions. In her off-time, she makes delicious ice cream. Kira told us what it’s like to give a 400-year-old tapestry a bath and why the basic tools of her trade are still a needle and thread.

Textile conservationist is pretty specific. What got you into this line of work?

“Textile conservator” was not my childhood dream job. However, clothes have been the one thing that I have been consistently interested in since childhood. I think for a long time my parents thought I was going to be a fashion designer. I was definitely the kid who played dress-up, and my mother taught me how to sew when I was in elementary school. I cultivated my adolescent mysterious weirdo persona by making/altering/wearing vintage clothes and reading lots of old fashion magazines.

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Edward Janssen is a silversmith for Tiffany’s who also designs a custom line of jewelry under the name This Charming Man. After losing his passion for jewelry-making during a stint in the service industry, Edward rediscovered it during a trip to the United States and built a career. Originally from Australia, he now lives New York with his wife Elizabeth Carey Smith and their daughter.

Tell me how you first got into designing jewelry. Did you wear a lot of jewelry growing up?

I have always been interested in adornment—not just jewelry, but clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, any form of decoration, basically. I’m sure my mother was the predominant reason for this. She has always shared her interest in fashion with me, and is very talented herself. She was actually head of the Australian hand-knitters guild, which, yes, is as odd as it sounds. As well as producing incredible argyle and Fair Isle sweaters, these women and a few men would also take on crazier projects, like reproducing exact replicas of wartime clothing or knitting full desert landscapes out of wool. I was also lucky enough to attend a high school that fostered and encouraged creativity. After I attended an amazing one-year arts program designed to let you try a little of everything, I narrowed my choices down to printmaking or gold and silversmithing. I then pursued my BFA at university, but in a lot of ways I regret learning my craft there as I feel the emphasis was put squarely on concept technique, where technical skill came in a very sorry second. After university, feeling mentally burned out, I went down the hospitality rabbit hole and ended up working in, and then managing a bar. It wasn’t until coming to NYC for the first time in 2005 that I got inspired to start making jewelry again, and from there to creating my This Charming Man jewelry label.

Read more at GOOD.

Daniel Giusti is a chef at Copenhagen’s Noma, an institution consistently ranked as the best in the world. Before that he was cutting his teeth as executive chef of 1789 in Washington, D.C. And before that? Before that, Daniel was flipping burgers as a teenager. He’s a young dude and a true Horatio Alger. We were thrilled to speak to him.

You dodged a rather large post-adolescent bullet by discovering your calling at the tender age of fifteen. But you didn’t obtain a degree at the Culinary Institute of America until 2004. Tell me about what happened in between. Did you know that food was your destiny, or did you have doubts and pursue other things?

I got a job when I was fifteen at Clydes in Georgetown. I worked there more or less full time throughout high school. It was definitely my focus. My mom could tell you that work for me was much more important than school. I had posted a 3.5 GPA in high school through my senior year taking AP classes, so for that last year I opted for an easier schedule and worked more. Really I worked as much as I could. I had applied and been accepted to CIA early my senior year, so I knew where I was going and what my focus needed to be. I worked very hard that year trying to prepare myself for school. When I arrived at CIA in the summer of 2002, I was very ready to go. Needless to say, I never lost interest in pursuing cooking as a career once it crossed my mind at age fifteen. For me though, the only avenue that was acceptable was to finish high school with a respectable GPA, and then go to an accredited culinary school. Others take more direct approaches, no culinary school, maybe even leave high school early; but like I said, that was not for me. It just took that many years from the time I made my decision to the time I graduated from CIA. It was as fast as I knew how to do it.

Can you talk a little bit more about why you chose to go to an accredited culinary school as opposed to more of what you call a “direct approach”? Restaurant work seems like one of the last bastions where perseverance and skill alone can bring success. Was your degree obtained with a specific goal in mind, or did you just want to go to college?

Well to be honest with you, there were two factors. One would be the influence of my mother. She supported me 110 percent to become a chef and helped me in every way possible, driving me to and from work, taking me to career fairs, allowing me to miss family functions to work. With that said, as a 15 year old making a big decision to pursue a career in cooking, just going to work in a restaurant after high school did not cut it for her. I was a hardworking student at that point in my life, so the only avenue I feel she found acceptable was a formal education in the culinary arts. The other factor in all this was probably one that influenced my mother as well. The first people I had met in the hospitality industry (chefs in restaurants, chef instructors at vocational schools, CIA admissions representatives) all had gone to school. That’s all I knew. At the age of 15, it did not occur to me to do anything else but to go to culinary school. Thinking now at this point in my career, I would say 99 percent of the people I have had the most respect for as chefs have all gone to some hospitality/culinary school. Obviously some of the best chefs ever did the deal without formal education, but I think it takes a special type of person and more importantly the right restaurant/restaurants to provide the right learning experience to provide a great base of knowledge. I am happy with the decision to go to school in that I learned quite a bit in only two years and more so because I made a lot of great connections which have really helped me in my career.

School aside, chefs train under other chefs, in a very old-school system of tutelage. Who was, or were, your favorite teachers, and what was some of the best advice they gave you?

I have worked for some great chefs and people. But more specifically, I’ve worked off and on for a guy named John Guattery. He has been more of a mentor than someone who taught me individual points of cooking. He has given me quite a bit of advice about my career path as far as where to work next, and why, as well as life in general .He has always been there to answer questions and be super critical about my ideas. It is great to have someone who you know is your friend but has no problem telling you that you are wrong or something you have cooked is shit. I worked for him for a total of eight years off an on and left three times during the period to go work elsewhere, and each time I left he supported me because he knew that it was good for my career development. That was the best unspoken advice I have ever received: support to leave a well-paid, comfortable job to take on one that does not pay very well and is extremely difficult for the sake of learning more.

Can you tell me about one of these instances where you had to choose between keeping the high-paying job (and professional stasis) or take a leap of faith (and drop in salary) for the learning experience?

Well, my last move fits that description to a “T.” I was an executive chef at a reputable restaurant in D.C. with a lot of decision making ability and also getting paid very well. I set my own schedule, and I was the boss. I dropped all of that and moved to Copenhagen to work at Noma. When I arrived here, I had no paying job lined up; I was a stagiaire, which is kind of like an intern. I was at the very bottom. Now I have acquired a job as a chef de partie which puts me a little further up but still very far from the boss. But I am getting paid. Still though, the reason for dropping the solid job in DC was for the experience, and as of now I consider it the best career move I have ever made.

So let’s talk about Noma, whose specialty is a genre entirely of their own making — Nordic cuisine. What exactly is Nordic cuisine?

It has actually been defined in many places now, but I will give you my interpretation of it. First of all, Nordic Cuisine in Denmark utilizes only Scandinavian ingredients. I presume if you wanted to adapt “Nordic cuisine” elsewhere, you would use the ingredients indigenous to that place. To me, the larger role of vegetables in the cuisine is the biggest difference. The focus is actually on vegetables rather than meat. This is obviously different than many Western cuisines. After vegetables, seafood plays the next largest role, and then meat as the least prevalent staple. Another large difference is the absence of food that is overly sweet. Desserts in the cuisine are balanced and fresh, not full of sugar and overly sweet. Herbs and salt are used to balance desserts. Acidic components such as yogurt and vinegars are used in desserts, as well as vegetables people would not typically associate with desserts such as carrots and cucumbers. Once again, this makes for a more balanced and fresh finish rather than one that puts you over the top.

Aside from the cuisine, what are some of the other differences between working in a Danish kitchen and an American one?

In the case of Noma, I do not think it’s a typical Danish kitchen. With that said, Noma is obviously very different compared to the average kitchen in the United States. First of all, we can work for sixteen hours a day here, whereas in the states that’s just not legal. That makes for a much different feel. Noma is super intense and requires each employee in the kitchen to know what’s going on among all of the sections, so everyone must be able to help plate every dish as well as have the ability to deliver each of the dishes to the customers and describe them accurately. I would say those things are what make it very different. With most kitchens, you focus on your section and that’s it. Here that doesn’t work. You really need to follow what’s going on in the whole kitchen.

Elizabeth Carey Smith is a typographer and graphic designer at The Letter Office in New York. The attention paid to fonts over the past few years is long overdue, and we were excited to ask Elizabeth about everything that goes into creating one and how she got the itch to do it. This interview is part of a two-part series; next time around we’ll talk to Elizabeth’s silversmith husband.

Do you consider yourself a typographer or a graphic designer? Where does one end and the other begin?

Typography is the use of type; type design is the design and production of the actual fonts; lettering is drawing one-off letters or words. These all get jumbled together quite often, even by graphic designers. Where I fit in will probably sound convoluted: I’m a graphic designer who specializes in type-based projects, but my obsession with type runs so deep that I’d mostly regard myself as a typographer. I am also a type designer and letterer, so I run the gamut of designing and using letters. Standard projects, where I’m hired as a graphic designer, usually involve designing type-heavy reports and books, so I’m organizing content with type. [W]hereas other designers may use imagery, illustration, and other things as their primary way to communicate a message, type is my medium.

Read more at GOOD.

Mikkel Borg Bjergsø is the owner and impresario of Mikkeller, one of the most exciting companies making beer in the world today. His brews run the gamut—pilsners, IPAs, bocks, and lambics—and often incorporate a baffling array of techniques—aged in Calvados cognac barrels, infused with jalapenos, and or concocted from playfully mismatched yeasts, malts, and hops. Unabashedly weird, for sure, but also delicious.

Did you start brewing first and venture into eccentric recipes later?

Shirley Braha is the one-woman powerhouse behind MTV’s indie video series “Weird Vibes.” Before that, she made her name with the NYC public access classic “New York Noise.” She’s funny, smart, totally go-getting, and, duh, has good taste in music. Here she tells us about the power of images, learning on the fly, and why working from your bed can be very productive.

One of the best things about your shows is how they humanize people in these hip bands, which is something the internet usually does the exact opposite of, with 140-character missives and blog gossip. What are some of the most surprising things you’ve learned about musicians since you started doing this?  

I’m glad that comes through. There might be this idea that “successful” musicians have big egos or “have it all,” but usually they are just as insecure as anyone else. Actually, they are often more insecure, because as a popular indie band you have more people watching you and judging you, and you read what all these losers on Twitter who don’t know anything have to say about you. And even when you’re at the top of your game, you’re worried your days of relevancy are numbered, that a bad review will ruin your career, that your manager / label / agent / publicist doesn’t think of you as a priority, and that a year from now no one will care, and you’ll never find a good job after the band is over because you’ve been out of the workforce for too long, that you’ll be poor for the rest of your life, and you won’t be able to afford to have a kid, and you’re going to die alone with nothing but some faded memories of your 3pm slot at Coachella. Alternative Stars – they’re just like us!

Do you feel like you have an obligation to your audience in terms of band coverage?

If I made a show called “Shirl’s Fave New Indie Music Vidz” it probably wouldn’t be so different from “Weird Vibes” or “New York Noise”, but I like to consider an imaginary viewer’s hypothetical emotional needs, i.e. most people need at least some sense of familiarity, so I try to mix more popular indie artists in with more obscure ones. I try to avoid jumping on a buzz-bandwagon if I don’t genuinely like the music though.  I want to try to make a show that I’m not embarrassed about now or a year from now after the buzz dies.

What draws you to the visual aspect of a band’s music?

I think I’m probably not interested in a band’s visual representation in a sincere way, but it’s fun to observe and analyze how visual elements can shift your feelings and your perceptions of a band or artist. I try to keep music and image mentally separated as much as possible, because the power of image and especially music videos is so strong that it can totally enhance, alter, alienate, contextualize, and recontextualize they way we perceive music, to the point where sometimes you don’t even realize what you’re really listening to. It’s probably a band’s most powerful branding tool, but also dangerous when done wrong. I respect the medium because its obviously a really effective way to get people interested in new music. I also like that videos require more attention than an mp3 playing in the background while you multitask etc. A lot of videos do suck, but the great ones really stick with you.

What makes for a good video?

One of the best things about music videos is its a really open format where you can do just about anything, so I don’t think there is a checklist for what qualifies as a good video other than something that keeps you engaged. Once you can codify a “good music video” into things like “has grainy super-8 footage” and “lots of nautical themes,” it’s probably a sign to move on.

Did you look towards certain TV shows as inspiration before starting to produce your own stuff? I ask because so much of your work harkens back to the zaniness that were shows like “YO! MTV Raps,” with bands goofily “interviewing” other bands, bulky mic labels and all.

There wasn’t really any inspiration for “New York Noise” other than the general idea of “a cool music video show.” I had a good grasp on the music side of things, but in terms of TV production, I had no idea what I was doing at first and wasn’t entirely cognizant of the show’s production style until I read what people were writing about it. About the microphone cubes/logos – NYC TV was crazy about them! We had mic cubes for everything at the station. As for having bands host, it was mainly a result of being self-aware enough to accept that I would be a terrible VJ. I also didn’t want some random scenester bro dominating the show either, so I had to figure out other ways to make it work. With “Weird Vibes,” the biggest inspiration is, of course, “New York Noise.” This time around though I looked at a lot of other stuff, both old and new. I finally watched a bunch of “YO!” clips on YouTube, and they’re really awesome. My favorite old MTV show is “The Cutting Edge” – a monthly show from the mid-80s produced by IRS records – totally indie and wacky. But the things that I drew from for “Weird Vibes” are mainly visual – opening credits to late-80s Mickey Mouse Club, Saved by the Bell, a Yo-Yo ball commercial, NERF logo colors. I just think those graphics were awesome, and I wanted to play around with some of those ideas. So if I’m pandering to nostalgia, at least it’s my own.

In terms of making the show – writing, directing, editing – that’s a lot of time and technology. Did you go to school for that?

I took a handful of video production classes at Smith College, but it wasn’t my major or anything. Mostly I just learned on the clock. It’s relatively intuitive stuff. NYC TV was a good place to start producing in 2003 because the channel was kind of a mess at first, and it wasn’t a nightmare if one of my early episodes had 10-second gaps of black, or if they aired the segments of my show in the wrong order. Plus I was basically just a glorified intern at first anyway. Then when I realized this was a real thing, I picked up Final Cut Pro for Dummies, and I memorized some different types of microphones and probably Googled “tv lingo,” and the rest I’ve probably just learned through trial and error over the course of about a hundred episodes, between “New York Noise” and “Weird Vibes.” I do all the graphics too!

Do you have a staff? Is there such thing as an average day?

There’s no staff specifically for “Weird Vibes” other than myself. But I work with the MTV online video production team, and I have an excellent little camera crew whenever there’s a shoot. My average work day usually turns into an average work night, and I also work a lot on the weekends. I don’t have much distinction between work and not-work. I probably do 30 percent of the show from my bed. Basically “Weird Vibes” is my boyfriend. Editing takes up the most time, but it’s also my favorite part. I like all the parts actually. The other main things are coming up with episode ideas, planning for the shoot, producing and directing the actual shoot, watching every video on the entire internet to find a few to include in the show, getting some paperwork from the labels for those videos, and then some other odds and ends like graphics and delivering assets and trying to do dumb social media stuff. I don’t really like the social media / promotion part of it. (Does anyone? I don’t know.)

Despite how buzz-worthy “indie” has become, it used to be a small, DIY scene. Did you come up in that milleau?

When I was fourteen, someone on AOL Instant Messenger tipped me off to the “indiepop mailing list” and that was it – I had totally “found my scene.” It sounds corny, but it’s true.  It was a pretty active, supportive international community. e all had our little DIY projects – bands, radio shows, zines, popfests, etc., and I was into a lot of the labels-  Kindercore Records, Shelflife, March, Le Grand Magistery, Darla, Matinee, Omnibus, Magic Marker, Labrador, etc.  I took to it hard and fast. I started a small record label when I was sixteen, and there was this whole DIY infrastructure that I was able to be part of.  My parents were totally freaked out, so my IRL indie interactions were pretty limited until I graduated high school, but there’s a lot you can do behind a computer.

Howard Veregin is the official state cartographer of Wisconsin. As avid users of maps both old and new, we were enchanted by his descriptions of maps as weapons, the “Google revolution,” and what makes the post of “official state cartographer” such a unique job.

Where did your interest in maps come from?

We moved a lot when I was young, and I lived in some pretty isolated communities, so I learned early on that where you lived at any particular time might just be a historical accident. I entered college with the idea that geography was a subject I might like to major in (which I did). I wasn’t really interested in manual (pre-computer) cartography as a profession. I enjoyed the creative, artistic side of making maps, but to make really good maps you needed to master a lot of fussy arcane skills that frankly bored me a bit. But what really got me hooked on maps was computers. In graduate school I took a computer cartography course and realized this was something I really wanted to do. This was in the early 1980s […] we used some of the earliest computer-mapping software ever written. What appealed to me about computer mapping—although I doubt I knew it at the time—was the opportunity to combine left- and right-brain thinking in the creation of something both useful and beautiful.

Read more at GOOD.

Meital Manzuri is a criminal defense attorney in Beverly Hills. Despite the glitz and glamour of her surroundings, Meital litigates for everyday people with everyday run-ins with the law. We had the pleasure of speaking with her about the cases she works on, her noble pugnacity, and her natural ability to stand-up to the Man.

How is being a defense attorney different than what we see in the movies and on TV?

People are always taken aback a bit when I tell them I am a criminal defense attorney because they assume that my job must involve representing hardened criminals who should be in jail. That is a common misconception. Very few of my clients are accused of violent crimes. I pick and choose the offenders I represent, and it is my belief that they are generally good people who have often been taken advantage of, made an understandable mistake or are people that can be easily rehabilitated and it would be a waste of time and resources to send them to prison. Most of my clients are very good people, and I am usually the first one to come down on them and show them the error of their ways.

Why defense? Why not prosecute big, bad guys?

I never considered working for the prosecution because it does not gel with my personality, political views, or work ethic. I have always been a confrontational type person with a desire to change the rules, and I always had a problem with authority. I think criminal defense was always my destiny.

What are some of your most common cases?

I often fight for people who have gotten DUIs, and people who have gotten in trouble because of a mistake, a misunderstanding, or the overzealous behavior of law enforcement. But many of my cases involve the gray area of the law that surrounds medical marijuana. That means many of my clients are growers, patients, dispensary operators, or, often times, all of the above. They can come to me in a consulting capacity whereby I try and advise them on the legal dos and don’ts of medical marijuana. All too often though, people come to me when it’s too late and a criminal prosecution has been initiated. In that case, I spend considerable time evaluating and preparing their medical defense, if any, and then fight to get them the best result possible. Sometimes that means taking it all the way to trial, and sometimes that means negotiating with a prosecutor for a plea agreement. Every case is different, but many of my medical marijuana clients are trying to operate legally, pay their taxes, and trying to help very sick people obtain medicine. Unfortunately though, they are caught in the crosshairs of a catch-22 legal situation.

This sounds like a particularly Californian legal environment.

The federal-state conflict is a very interesting area of medical marijuana law, and being in California definitely puts me in a unique position to defend these cases. Under federal law, marijuana has no accepted medicinal uses, so according to one definition, it is still completely illegal. Despite that, the Obama administration has made it clear that the federal government is no longer interested in going after patients who are in possession of a small amount of marijuana. They are only interested in pursuing those that are distributing and those that are cultivating extremely large amounts. I have defended federal cases and won when the defendant is only in possession of personal amounts. Recently, a client who owned three dispensaries was raided and faced a mandatory minimum federal prison sentence of ten years. But this person was a very compassionate provider and really in it for the right reasons. I worked on his case as the brief writer and was able to convince the judge to allow him to be the first federal defendant to present a medical defense in federal court. Previously, defendants would not even be able to utter the words “medical marijuana” in federal court, so all the jury heard was that the defendant had a bunch of marijuana – period. So his case was very huge. It’s actually been ongoing for about five years now and the trial has not even taken place. I’m not sure if it ever will.

You mentioned that you often try to counsel your clients in the error of their ways – “counselor,” of course, being another term for a lawyer. Does being so involved in your clients’ personal lives get tricky at times?

Things can definitely get tricky. I have had clients where I got too involved and tried to help too much, and I ended up in a complicated situation. For example, I had a client who is very well-known in the medical marijuana world, and she got in trouble because of an abusive boyfriend. I got over-involved and tried to help her get out of the self-destructive situation while also defending her criminally. This was too much. I have since learned that boundaries are important, and I can only do so much. I also used to baby my clients and try and make them feel better about themselves. But while I am their confidant, adviser, and defender, I am not there to sugar coat anything. I have found this to be much more effective with achieving good results both as an attorney and positively influencing my clients’ lives.

What’s one of the most exciting cases you’ve worked on recently?

One of my current cases involves a father and his two sons. One of the sons was having a beer on the front lawn and the police arrived. The police jumped over the guy’s fence, pulled the father and the other brother out of their home, and all three of them were arrested and beaten. One of the sons, a member of the Navy, suffered a fracture to his leg, his eye was swollen shut, and he was bloodied pretty badly. It appears that their only crime was being black on Friday. After getting the case thrown out for the criminal allegations, we are now suing the police department. Achieving justice for these three men is the type of work that makes me feel good about what I do.

*Interview by Arden Sherman

Emily Thompson is a floral designer based in Brooklyn. Her fantastical creations have graced everything from weddings to the White House during the holiday season. She recently spoke with us about the business of blossoms, the inspiration of mythic landscapes and how a month in a flower shop during college got her where she is today.

What surprised you about designing the First Family’s Christmas decor?

The White House curators ok’d some designs I thought were fairly outrageous, given the context, such as replacing the crystals in the chandeliers with raw quartz, and dumping giant moss and lichen-covered rocks all over their mantelpieces. This was mildly shocking to me. Then—predictably perhaps—they changed their minds about the chandeliers. The rocks, however, stayed.

Read more at GOOD.

Kalia Brooks is the Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art in Brooklyn. She is also an an adjunct professor  at New York University and a Ph.D. candidate in aesthetics and art theory at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

Can you take me through the process of organizing an exhibition? Which comes first—the artist or you as the curator?

I stay away from having a curatorial idea first, and then finding artists to illustrate that idea. To me, those are the least successful shows. I am surrounded by artists, and I believe it is the curator’s job to always keep up with artists whose work they find compelling, and who are dealing with ideas, topics, and forms that the curator will be able to build a show around. So, for me, exhibition-making always starts with the artist.

Read more HERE.