You’re in Good Hands with these Rhode Island Artisans

Meet the locals who have mastered their craft using time-honored traditions, tools and their hands.

10 hours ago

Dana Rae Laverty,

Carley Ferrara, owner of Iron Mountain Forge & Furniture, stands inside the Providence shop. Every Iron Mountain Forge team member has their portrait hanging on the wall. Photography by Chad Weeden

For some, it’s a calling. Something they were destined to do, as natural as breathing. For others, it’s a skill passed down through generations, mother to daughter or father to son: It’s in their DNA. Some work in 150-year-old grist mills on the banks of quaint brooks, while some toil in urban living rooms hugging the shore of the Seekonk River. For some, metal is their medium. For others, clay.

Tailor. Cobbler. Weaver. Potter. We peered inside the studios of artisans and craftspeople throughout Rhode Island, watching as they wove, carved, sewed and hammered at their creations. Many different trades, all with several threads binding them together: a time-honored tradition, simple tools and their hands.

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Carley Ferrara of Iron Mountain Forge & Furniture

Ferrara uses an angle grinder to grind a weld flush. Photography by Chad Weeden

Carley Ferrara inside Iron Mountain Forge & Furniture, located in Providence’s Atlantic Mills. Photography by Chad Weeden

One of the first things you see inside Iron Mountain Forge & Furniture in Providence is a poster of Xena the Warrior Princess on the wall. She lords over the piles of steel and hammers, toolboxes painted pink and welding helmets dotted with “Powerpuff Girls” stickers in the industrial space, where owner Carley Ferrara and her team of four forge beautiful and functional designs from steel and bronze. Ferrara fell in love with metalwork at RISD — she found woodworking, her first calling, “extremely boring and monotonous” — and has been honing her craft ever since. Her daughter even has her own anvil and blue locker. “There have been times when I ask, ‘Willow, do you want to go get Del’s?’ and she’ll say, ‘Can we just go to the forge?’” she says. Working in a male-dominated trade means that the heavily female shop deals with its share of chauvinism, which Ferrara defuses with deft skill and a quick wit. On one job site, someone kept yelling, “Where’s the man? Where’s the man?” when he saw Ferrara and Jaclyn Trindade, Iron Mountain Forge’s shop manager, approaching. “He actually asked me what my husband did for a living to support my hobby,” Ferrara says. “And I said, ‘My husband’s at home doing laundry right now.’” ironmtnforge.com

Shop manager Jaclyn Trindade, Ferrara and Falzone forge a piece of metal.Photography by Chad Weeden

Lead blacksmith Kailey Falzone’s welding helmet is covered in kittens and “Powerpuff Girls” stickers. Photography by Chad Weeden

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Maya Cordeiro of Bristol Looms

Cordeiro passes a shuttle filled with turquoise yarn through a loom. Photography by Chad Weeden

Maya Cordeiro in her Bristol Looms studio. Photography by Chad Weeden

Children’s schoolyard laughter lilts its way up to Maya Cordeiro’s second-floor studio on a late summer day. It’s fitting background noise to her afternoon’s work, winding twenty large cones of white yarn onto her loom, a tedious process that must be repeated every three to six weeks. She was initially studying to become an art teacher when she took her first weaving class. “I immediately clicked with it,” she says. “It was like, ‘Oh, this is what my hands are supposed to be doing.’” You can find Cordeiro at her Bristol studio at 7:30 most mornings, weaving colorful table runners, placemats, napkins and dish towels on her forty-five-inch Macomber loom. The art of weaving is intensely physical: Cordeiro constantly moves her arms from side to side, pulls the machine toward and away from her, and pushes down treadles with her feet. A shoulder injury plagued Cordeiro a few years ago, and she’s currently struggling with a cranky back. But nestled in her cozy studio, surrounded by cones of yarn in every hue and greenery tucked into cheerful nooks, Cordeiro is at peace, soaking up the gentle rhythm of life at the loom as she crafts art in her studio by the sea. bristollooms.com

With scissors and shuttles, just a few of her many tools. Photography by Chad Weeden

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Jonathan Glatt of O&G Studio

Jonathan Glatt in O&G Studio’s production facility, a row of Windsor chairs behind him. The designs feature Rhode Island-centric names like Wayland, Colt, Metacom,
Touisset and Sakonnet. The studio also crafts stools, settees, dining tables, desks, coffee tables and a line of lighting fixtures. Photography by Chad Weeden

It all started with a Windsor chair. Jonathan Glatt, a jeweler by trade who crafted furniture in his spare time, was drawn to the easy elegance and simple lines of the chair, which has roots in 18th century England. So, with a partner, he formed O&G Studio in 2009 and started crafting them himself. But with a Technicolor twist: He painted them in vivid hues to stand out from the dark brown stains in vogue at the time. It worked. “Those initial bright colors stopped people long enough that they could reacquaint themselves with what a great form it was,” he says. O&G grew from two people in a 1,200-square-foot studio to a team of twenty-four in a 20,000-square-foot production facility in Warren, where Glatt also makes his home. The chairs are still crafted to order from North American ash and maple with steam-bent backs and those same colors, but now stained instead of painted, so the rich grain and joinery details shine through. “If somebody from 1760 came in and saw the chairs, they would be absolutely familiar with how we’re doing it,” says Glatt, who became O&G’s sole owner in 2019. “They had a machine that was run by a wheel or a treadle run by a motor. But it’s the same thing.” oandgstudio.com

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Alan Frances of Bob Frances Interiors

Measuring a swath of cloth for a reupholstered chair. Photography by Chad Weeden

Alan Frances in his basement workshop, surrounded by bolts of fabric. Photography by Chad Weeden

“Are these sterilized?” Alan Frances asks, tossing a handful of upholstery tacks into his mouth. He’s showing a visitor how upholsterers used tack hammers in the years before staple guns were invented. “You need three hands, because you’re holding the hammer and you’re holding the fabric. How do you hold the tack? You learn” — he moves his mouth almost imperceptibly, pushing the flat side of a tack through his lips — “to turn the head of a tack around with your tongue.” Frances holds the hammer to his lips. Clink. The tiny tack adheres to the magnetic head, ready to use. These are the kind of party tricks you pick up when you’ve been reupholstering furniture since you were eleven. Alan’s father, Bob Frances, learned to sew as a World War II Army paratrooper and started Bob Frances Interiors in 1948. Alan learned everything at his knee. There are no shortcuts here: Items are taken apart, stripped to the bone, and reupholstered perfectly. Patterns, seams and stripes must match, or they’re not worthy of leaving the North Providence shop. Frances’ three team members, Ryan Clausius, Teresa Giannini and Tara Hanson, have been with him for decades. “We’re family,” he says. He estimates there are about ten upholsterers left working in Rhode Island. “We’re a dying breed, certainly,” he says. “I’m hoping there’ll be a turnaround, because there’s been a turn toward the trades. But every time you hear someone mention it, it’s plumbers and electricians. You very rarely hear upholstery.” bobfrances.com

Frances uses a staple puller and a magnetic tack hammer to adjust and fit new fabric to a chair. Photography by Chad Weeden

Frances’ father’s 1930s-era Singer sewing machine, still in use. Photography by Chad Weeden

Sewing a colorful piece of fabric; a vintage recliner gets a face-lift. Photography by Chad Weeden

Photography by Chad Weeden

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Jeffrey Greene of Peter Pots Pottery

Jeffrey Greene in the upstairs workshop of Peter Pots Pottery, surrounded by plaster slip-casting molds. His parents, Oliver and Elizabeth Greene, founded the company in 1948 while students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Photography by Chad Weeden

Large mixers churn liquid clay, called “slip,” before it gets poured into molds; glazed “green-ware” — designs that have air-dried overnight — are stacked and ready for the kiln, which reaches 2,100 degrees. Photography by Chad Weeden

Jeffrey Greene never thought he’d be a potter. After growing up immersed in Peter Pots Pottery, the business his parents founded in 1948, Greene left bucolic West Kingston for Detroit to develop engines for Cadillac. After returning home — he felt like a “small cog in a big machine” — he taught himself to make furniture and sold the pieces at his store, the Ball and Claw in Newport, for four decades. But when Peter Pots needed modernizing, Greene found himself back in the space where he spent so much of his youth. Now he oversees the retail store and production space upstairs. “This place needed me,” he says. “I took what I knew of retailing and running a business and applied it here. I mean, good design is good design, whether it’s 18th century Georgian or midcentury modern.” The team of ten still uses the same designs Greene’s parents used, and the same slip-casting method to create the fine, handcrafted stoneware cherished by generations of Rhode Islanders. “It’s easy to go to a store and buy a big box of dinnerware with everything you need in it,” Greene says. “So my job is promoting what we have here and keeping it in people’s minds and not letting people forget about it.” peterpotspottery.com

Greene pulls a fired coffee cup from a small kiln. Photography by Chad Weeden

All of the company’s serving and tableware are made in its West Kingston headquarters in a historic grist mill abutting Glen Rock Brook. Photography by Chad Weeden

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Zoë Barbano Grinder

Zoë Barbano Grinder mends a sweater in her sunny Providence studio. She can be found mending most Friday nights at the Pawtucket Farmers Market at Jordan’s Jungle and every other Saturday at the Farm Fresh RI Winter Farmers Market in Providence. Photography by Chad Weeden

With a mother who moonlighted as a costume designer, it’s only fitting that Zoë Barbano Grinder has dedicated herself to the art of using needle and thread to mend and create. “Some of my first memories are of sewing with her,” she says. When not at her studio in Providence’s Valley District, you can usually find the maker and mender at local farmers markets practicing on-demand mending. People drop off worn socks, torn sweaters and ripped jeans, continue their shopping, and Barbano Grinder makes the pieces whole with colorful thread and thrifted fabric scraps. The patches can be vivid or discreet: bright patches add a bit of fun and personality to a garment, she says, while easily hidden repairs are more appropriate for the workplace. “Mending as a practice for me is about preserving the clothes that you have,” she says. “It’s an access issue. Not everybody has access to new clothes. I didn’t have access to new clothes for a very long time. It has really turned into a celebration of proof of life, because to wear something out is to be like, ‘I am alive, and I have a body and I move in it.’ It’s like an extension of our skin, a celebration of our scars.” zoebarbanogrinder.com

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Caleb Getto of Hope Bindery & Box Co.

Getto uses a backing press, which clamps books vertically to give the spine a “shoulder” and rounded edges. Photography by Chad Weeden

Caleb Getto, owner of Hope Bindery & Box Co., stands amid old typefaces once used by The Providence Journal and the now-defunct Bradford Press. Photography by Chad Weeden

Caleb Getto leafs carefully, deliberately, through the vellum pages of a nineteenth century Roman missal. The crimson cover is adorned with gilded filigrees and a cross, and the neat Latin calligraphy and illustrations inside look like a medieval manuscript. It’s just one of the many items Getto must repair in their typical day as a bookbinder. Dog-eared cookbooks and beloved children’s books find their way into Getto’s hands, too, filled with hand-written notes and crayon drawings in the marginalia. “People aren’t necessarily repairing books that are super high value all the time. A lot of it is sentimental, like, ‘This was my mom’s cookbook. She passed it down to me, but it’s falling apart and I want to be able to use it,’” Getto says. “It’s great to be able to give these things more life.” Getto bought the business a few months ago when founder (and fellow RISD grad) Jim DiMarcantonio retired. Getto uses the same tools bookbinders have used for centuries: book presses, wooden dowels, bone folders, book boards, glue. Almost everything in the Pawtucket shop is done by hand. “In the technological age, it’s so nice to be able to look back and say, ‘Oh, look at the stack of things that I made,’” they say. “It’s so incredibly satisfying.’” hopebindery.com

Getto displays brass matrices used to hold lead type for stamping words and designs onto covers. Photography by Chad Weeden

Lead type. Photography by Chad Weeden

Wooden dowels. Photography by Chad Weeden

The dowels are applied to the back and front of a book’s cover, near the spine, and placed in a book press to create joints to help the book open easily. Photography by Chad Weeden

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Abraham Hernandez of Tony’s Shoe Service

Abraham Hernandez inside his shop, Tony’s Shoe Service. When Hernandez purchased the store in 1999, then-owner Tony Tenreiro asked him to keep the name the same. Photography by Chad Weeden

A saddle sits just next to the entrance of Tony’s Shoe Service, meticulously handcrafted in soft, neutral leather. It was a gift from the owner, Abraham Hernandez, to his wife. “I love my wife,” he says, his trademark easy, wide grin spreading over his face. One of ten children, Hernandez learned the art of leatherworking alongside his father, a saddler, in his native Dominican Republic. He bought the Central Falls store from original owner Tony Tenreiro, a Portuguese immigrant, in 1999, and has been reattaching soles, mending straps and making fine leather bags and belts ever since. But the store is also a refuge of sorts, a place where Hernandez once counseled a teenage girl who wanted to quit school to stay the course. (He proudly displays her graduation picture on the wall.) A place where he has taken in teenage boys, taught them a skill, and paid them honestly for their work. Just to the rear of the saddle is a sewing machine and bags of clothing and shoes. They’re going to the Dominican Republic, along with any tips Hernandez earns during the year, to help those less fortunate — more wisdom passed down from one generation to the next. “My father told me, ‘My son. When you have something that people need, if you can help, you do it.’” tonysshoeservice.wordpress.com

Hernandez buffs a pair of shoes on one of Tenreiro’s vintage machines. Photography by Chad Weeden

Hernandez works on a pair of boots for a customer. Photography by Chad Weeden

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Bao Vu of K-Zao Studio

Bao Vu in their East Providence studio, next to one of their bespoke jackets. Photography by Chad Weeden

As a grade school student in their native Vietnam, Bao Vu hated wearing their school uniform. The pants were too wide and made them feel self-conscious. So their mother brought them to a tailor, who made Vu a pair of perfectly tapered pants. “That was a really transformative experience,” says Vu, who crafts bespoke clothing for their brand, K-Zao Studio, from their East Providence living room turned-studio. “But I got in a lot of trouble,” they add with a laugh. Vu has many queer and transgender clients, many of whom are seeking that same self-acceptance, that same feeling of being comfortable in their skin. It’s an important part of Vu’s practice. “I’m not using a man’s block, or a woman’s block — I’m just working with your body,” they say. “Nothing is gendered here.” They’re especially known for their jackets, commanding silhouettes crafted from natural materials like wool, tweed and linen with strong shoulders, wide lapels, one-button closures and gently tapered waists. Vu started their tailoring journey in college — where they studied photography and sculpture — by watching YouTube videos and meticulously copying the techniques. Although the materials may be different, they consider their designs a form of art. “I see my clothes as sculpture,” Vu says. k-zao.studio

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Michael Marr of Marr Office Equipment

Marr repairs the roller knob on a typewriter; various springs, screws and other typewriter parts. Photography by Chad Weeden

Michael Marr in his office workshop. Photography by Chad Weeden

A long wooden table stretches the length of the wall in the backroom of Marr Office Equipment. It’s pocked and worn, gouged from tools and stained with a dark patina of toner, degreaser and WD-40. Back in the office’s heyday, seven technicians sat in a row, fixing copy machines, printers, typewriters and faxes. Now it’s just Michael Marr, a third-generation business owner, manning the repair desk. He’s been fixing office equipment for as long as he can remember, following in the footsteps of his father, Raymond, and his father before him, Robert, who founded the firm in 1953. But lately he’s seen an upsurge in business thanks to the humble typewriter. Once on the brink of extinction, the revered office relic is having a moment: Actor Tom Hanks is a convert; so, too, is singer/songwriter John Mayer. Typewriter sales and repairs now make up 60 percent of Marr’s business. PBS has come to call on Marr’s Pawtucket workshop; so has the BBC. “We have a lot of other accounts, with copy repairs and toner sales and such, but God, the typewriter just doesn’t want to retire,” Marr says. He credits the rise in sales and repairs, in large part, to screen fatigue. “People want to get away from their gadgets,” he says. “Typewriters have been a breath of fresh air for so many people.” marrofficeequipment.com